


Collected Prompts

by RenaRoo



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-04-11 03:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 111
Words: 54,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4418582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenaRoo/pseuds/RenaRoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various drabbles and prompts from tumblr</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Grimmons: "Please Don't Do This"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/gifts), [ephemeraltea (temporarily_obsessed)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporarily_obsessed/gifts).



> For goodluckdetective during the Ship Prompt Meme

“Please don’t do this.”

The look on Grif’s face was… well, it was certainly a look Donut hadn’t seen the man have before. And _please_ was certainly something Donut hadn’t _heard_ from Grif before unless he was being forced by Sarge. Or humiliation. 

“I’m doing this for your own good, the message _must_ be aired,” Donut said, curling more against the wall so if Grif actually tried to reach over the locker he still couldn’t grab Donut’s leg. 

“No, it really fucking doesn’t!” Grif snapped.

“You confided in me because you wanted my romantic wisdom!” Donut defended. “Continue to have that trust now.”

“One, it wasn’t confiding, it was drunk blathering,” Grif began listing off on his fingers. “Two, I don’t trust you _because_ of things like this. And because I hate you. Three, _give me my goddamn phone!”_

“You’re the one that poured your soul out in text form, Grif!” Donut cried, shuffling closer to the wall as Grif took the unprecedented step of actually taking a step toward him. “I’m only doing this for your own good!”

“If _drunk_ me was smart enough to not send it, _what the fuck makes you think rational me wants to send it!?”_ Grif screamed, actually pressing against the locker and reaching up. “Give me the phone, Donut!!!” 

“NO!” Donut cried out. He let out a wail as Grif’s fingers actually brushed against his leg. “I have to send it! It’s for _LOVE!!!”  
_

“NO IT’S NOT!” Grif roared back.

They both paused as they heard the locker room door open. They looked to Simmons staring at them, hands already in the air. 

“What the fuck are you two doing!?” he demanded.

Grif could not have been any redder in the face, so Donut didn’t feel even slightly bad when Simmon’s phone went off in his pocket and the third Red Team member looked down to it.

“Goddammit, Donut.”


	2. Yorkalina: Thunderstorms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For ephemeraltea during the Ship Prompt Meme

York pulled over, stopped the car, turned completely in his seat, and stared at her like she had asked him if he was King Tut. Carolina, for her effort, was still stoic as she looked ahead, until she begun to unbuckle and reach for the door.

With his jaw hanging open in that way that meant – for truly a rare occasion – he was left speechless, York turned his head to follow her movements. 

“Wait wait wait,” he finally got out, beginning to unbuckle, too. “We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm and you wanna stop and feel the _rain?”_

“Did I stutter, Agent York?” Carolina asked, opening the door and stepping out into the crackling storm. 

“I guess not,” he responded before following suit, immediately hugging his arms around himself. “I just don’t see why!” he yelled over the storm.

Carolina turned to him. “When’s the last time you felt rain?”

“WHAT?” 

She groaned, cupped her hands around her mouth, and yelled, “When. Is. The last time. You. Felt rain!?”

“Haven’t thought about it!” he yelled.

Lightning cracked through the sky in the distance, making the special ops locksmith leap slightly. He scooted around the car to join her. 

Carolina breathed in the smell of rain. It was so much stronger than she remembered it. 

“Sometimes I get tired of space,” she told him. “Sometimes I just… remember what it’s like to feel like you’re on solid ground.”

She could feel him slip around behind her, wrap them both in his jacket. He laughed warmly into the back of her head. 

“I’m happy to just keep my rock with me,” he whispered into her hair. 


	3. Tuckington: I'm Terrified

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For goodluckdetective during the Ship Prompt Meme

Tucker threw his helmet against the training room wall, hardly flinching at how much sweat followed the carry through. It smacks hard enough to dent the helmet, which was about when the rest of the Reds and Blues slowly begun to file away from the training room. Save Caboose, who needed Donut looping arms with him and half-dragging the soldier out. 

The aqua marine’s eyes were fiery, furious. Honestly, Wash hadn’t seen Tucker so upset since they had left Crash Site Bravo. 

“Very mature, Tucker,” Wash snapped, every word scathing. 

“Fuck. You,” Tucker snarled through his teeth. “I am _sick_ of how hard you’re riding me in front of everyone! Stop undermining me. _Stop_ snapping off at every wrong breath I take while Grif and Simmons yolk it up.”

Wash stepped more into Tucker’s space, eyes narrowing. “Pick up your helmet.”

“No!” Tucker snapped.

“Pick. It. _Up,_ Captain Tucker,” Wash said lowly.

“Hey, here’s an idea, if you’re so worried about it, why don’t _you_ pick it up!” Tucker screamed back, raising his hands above him. “In fact, why don’t _you_ do all these goddamn drills instead of me. I’ve already proved I can take care of myself, Wash. I don’t _need_ your approval.”

“This isn’t about approval, _Lavernius_ ,” Wash hissed back. “This is about survival. I am making sure that we can all follow orders and not lose each other over stupid miscommunications again. _Does that sound alright to you?”_

 _“No!_ It doesn’t!” Tucker roared. “Because you don’t treat me the same as everyone else. And I don’t mean in the way that you don’t treat Caboose the same. I mean you’re such a fucking _hardass_ with me that I don’t even feel like I can breathe. I thought we were _done_ with this part. But apparently you just like me being forced to kiss your ass.”

“That’s not _remotely_ the case,” Wash snapped back.

“Oh, isn’t it?” Tucker laughed almost hysterically. “Then riddle me this, Wash-man, what the _fuck_ is your problem with me then!?”

Before Wash could even think his response through, he threw up his arms. “I think I’m in love with you!”

It came out so fast that at first, Wash wasn’t even sure he _had_ said it. He simply looked at the way that Tucker’s face dropped into something… unreadable, shocked. It was too late to take back.

Screwing his eyes shut, Wash lowered his head, shook from head to toe. “I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified,” he clarified. “I’m terrified because it’s always the people I love the most… who… who don’t make it back. And Tucker… I can’t survive you.”


	4. Sharkface: Burning Anger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s got nothing without his family. Except, maybe, a reason to be angry. [Season 13 x Episode 16 SPOILERS mostly]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I’ve been having a lot of Sharkface feels lately. I’m not sure what to do with that. ALSO EPISODE 16 SPOILERS. can’t emphasize that enough.

**[[S13xE16 POSSIBLE SPOILERS JUST IN CASE]]**

* * *

 

It is never going to be about finding peace.

There is a haunted look in Carolina, an exasperation, an understanding that he doesn’t care about, isn’t interested in at all. She has a working knowledge of this truth, which makes her refusal of it all the more infuriating.

He hates her. He hates what she’s done. 

Whether or not he should hate what it’s allowed him to become is not up for thought today. Will never be up for thought.

Burn her. He wants to _burn her.  
_

Fire is a painful, dangerous thing, and no one knows it better than him. 

In a blink, he could kill her. Even if it’s not reality, even if he can’t, he knows that the way he’s trying isn’t the “right” way to get things done.

He’s trained better than that, but his training isn’t going to help him satisfy that desire to kill her deep down in his soul now. It’s the only motivation he has, the only thirst he can’t quench. 

If anything, all he wants from her in the moments leading up to the big burn is to clearly see her fear. 

And fear isn’t something she’s giving him. 

It’s pity.

When he thinks he couldn’t hate her more, she looks at him, tries to reason with him, pities him, and tries to act like she can give him some sort of release from this rage.

She’s wrong. She has to be wrong. 

He can’t be burning with all this hate for nothing. 

Is he?


	5. Grimmons: Wanna Dance?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimmons. It's time for celebration on Chorus and Simmons gets some courage.

“So, back to the comparison to our lives in space and _Star Wars_ …”

Grif looked around, watching the celebration with as much apathy as he could muster. It was hard to maintain his image when, after everything was said and done, after they were finally “done” and the day was saved, there was entirely _so much_ to be excited and happy about.

But someone had to do it, and sat up on one of the mess hall tables, third beer in his hand, Grif supposed he very well could be _that_ guy again.  


“Are you comparing this,” Grif began, with a wave of his hand to the ongoing excitement and cheering, “to the end of _Return of the Jedi?”_

“Yes, minus Ewoks,” Simmons responded, shoulders forward as he leaned toward the edge of the table. His legs kicked a little mindlessly as he watched Chorus’ festivities from afar. as they always did.  


“Thank god.”

Simmons’ bottom lip puffed out some as he looked at Grif. “I like the Ewoks.”

“You’re, like, the _ultimate_ nerd,” Grif responded with a snort into his can. “But yes, Simmons, I would completely agree that our lives continue to prove to be _Star Wars._ But less star fights.”

That seemed to make Simmons go quiet for a bit. Grif could only assume it was because he found their agreement to be satisfactory for once, but he then noticed that Simmons was looking at him rather directly.

Grif raised an eyebrow and continued sipping on his drink. “What?”

“There’s music playing,” Simmons pointed out.

When nothing immediately followed, Grif rubbed his face and laughed. “Very good, Simmons!” he replied. “I can see you’ve brought your keen abilities of observation with you all this way. Is there anything else you’d like to point out?”

“No. _Asshole,”_ Simmons returned, running a hand through his too long hair. “I just. I was wondering.”

“Yes?”

The maroon space marine chewed on the inside of his cheek for a bit, apparently attempting (and failing) to keep Grif in suspense, before finally letting out with, “Wanna dance?”

For a moment, Grif just stared, then he cocked his head to the side. “Excuse?”

“Do you want to dance?” Simmons reiterated.  


“When have I _ever_ seemed like someone who danced?” Grif asked blankly.

“That time Sarge made you ‘tap dance.’“

“By shooting at my feet, Simmons,” Grif responded before finishing his beer. He roughly rubbed his mouth with his sleeve. “Are you being serious right now?”

“Of course I am! Why would I ask something this awkward if I wasn’t supposed to mean it?” Simmons demanded.  


“Well,” Grif responded, pushing off the table and turning around to offer Simmons a hand. “You _are_ pretty goddamn awkward. But hey, I’m drunk enough, why not dance?”  



	6. Grimmons: Looking Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimmons. Grif and Simmons prepare for a night out

It had long been past “fashionably late” but Simmons was still somehow managing to sit on one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs by the window just by the exit of the barracks. It was broken and leaned to the left, thus leading to the part cyborg to lean to the right as a counter balance.  


He had been that way for half an hour and his asscheeks were beginning to feel more than a little uneven.  


“Goddammit, Grif,” Simmons groaned as he checked his phone for the time.  


He should have known it was going to go this way. In hindsight, he was wondering why he _ever_ expected Grif to not be late for things.

Even just going to the bar for drinks was like pulling teeth. Doing stuff _for_ Grif was pulling teeth. The man was incorrigible.  


Simmons tapped on his knee a few times, listening to the hollow clink of metal on metal, when he could finally hear Grif coming down the hall – his stance was so obvious. He turned his head and began to make a comment about tardiness when he felt his throat catch a bit.  


Grif seemed a little caught off guard by Simmons’ reaction (or lack thereof, really) but offered no real explanation for himself. He scratched at his ear and then whipped back at his obviously wet hair.  


Showered and well groomed Grif, especially just after the end of a planet wide war, was a rare sight to see.

“Uh, you doing something with the jaw you’ve got on the floor there, Simmons?” Grif asked, eyebrows knitted together.  


Simmons rubbed at his own neck. “Heh. Yeah. I mean. Wow, Grif. I mean. Damn. You clean up good.”

Immediately, the other Red bristled. “What is that? Sarcasm?”

“No! It’s a compliment!” Simmons sputtered, standing up for emphasis. “I mean. Really! You clean up good. I appreciate it.”

Looking at him for a long minute, Grif put his hands on his hips. “You’re putting me on. Literally all I did was shower, throw on cargo pants and a button up shirt. Incorrectly buttoned. On purpose. To annoy you.”

“I’m not the one with OCD, how can you stand that?”  


“I’m committed to my sense of humor,” Grif huffed before looking down and fixing his shirt. “You’re ruining the moment, Simmons.”

“Well I’m sorry I appreciate you looking nice for once,” Simmons continued, feeling truly affronted himself.

“Good! You should be!”  



	7. Grimmons: Relationship Problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimmons. During a very awkward breakfast, Donut smells blood

Donut sat on the other side of the table, greedily taking as much oatmeal into his mouth as possible without daring to look down from Grif or Simmons. As usual when it came to relationship problems, Donut could smell blood, and he could manage to make it feel like he was somehow sitting between them even from the other side of the room.  


Simmons was staring down at his gruel, fork in one hand and spoon in the other, but even beyond his platter not looking appetizing, he felt like he couldn’t stand to eat anything.  


Grif had his shoulders turned just enough to seem like he was pointed the other way, but he didn’t share the same appetite woes.  


Well, Simmons thought, good for him.  


When Donut finished his own breakfast, he quietly sat down his utensils, stretched a bit, and then put his elbows on the table, leaning forward with his eyes predatory just above his crossed fingers.  


“So,” Donut began.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Grif snapped, not minding at all that his mouth was partially full. He waved a gross fork at their teammate. “I swear to god, Donut, don’t you even _start–”_

“I don’t even know what happened!” Donut defended.

“Exactly. Your input’s not necessary,” Grif snapped.  


Simmons felt like he was about ready to pop, though. Ignoring Donut, he turned in his seat, glaring at Grif. His face felt like it was burning (and probably looked the part as well). “How long were you standing there!?”

The orange soldier stopped, swore under his breath, then turned his head just enough to give Simmons the stinkeye. “You’re going to start shit now? In front of him?”

Donut looked positively delighted.

“Answer the question, Grif!”

Grif threw up his hands dramatically. “Long enough to know I’m apparently not satisfying something there, Simmons!”

“Sometimes you just have to… Oh, shut up. Like you don’t…” Simmons felt so flustered even breaching the subject he had to cover his face and release a long string of “fuck fuck fuck fuck”. All the embarrassment he thought he had swallowed down earlier that morning was working its way back up. “I just. You were taking so long in the shower–”

“My own room, Simmons, you think about that for a minute,” Grif said almost mournfully. “Nowhere is safe from you. Nothing is sacred to you. You’re an animal.”

“My mom used to tell me it’d make me go blind,” Simmons muttered.

“She’s half right, it made _me_ almost go blind,” Grif huffed.  


They sat there for a moment, everything aired out and yet nothing at all relieved.  


Donut leaned forward, stage whispering. “Wait. So Simmons was masturbating?”

“DONUT!”  



	8. Tuckington: Forget and Forgive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tuckington. Tucker is a bit tired of Blue Team luck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from goodluckdetective!

Nothing was ever simple for them. Not that it was any simpler for the Reds or anything, but the comfort Red Team seemed to forget they always had was the near guarantee that they would all return from a mission at the end of the day.

Tucker would rather be dead than Red if you asked him point blank, but sometimes getting reminded of Blue Team tradition left him feeling more than a little cold.  


So when the away team was pulling in with reported injuries, Tucker almost _expected_ it when Wash turned out to be one of them.  


He leered at Carolina and Church as they pulled in on a Mongoose, hackles raised, fists clenched. “What the fuck happened!?” Tucker demanded.  


“Car,” Carolina growled, kicking the vehicle into park before jumping out. “He was fine until he bumped his head.”

“How hard!?” Tucker demanded, knowing that raising his own voice was just going to cause Carolina to puff up more defensively. He was too angry to really find himself caring, though.  


“Hard enough to knock him out, he’s fine, Tucker,” Church barked back. His defensiveness of Carolina was a whole _other_ issue that Tucker didn’t have the patience for at the moment.

“It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal!” Tucker reminded them, finger pointing accusingly. “You promised me everything would be fine.”

“It didn’t go as expected,” Carolina said in a tone that _very much_ made it sound as though it was meant to be the final word, but Tucker could give less of a fuck if she wanted the conversation to end her way. Wash was _hurt.  
_

“Wash isn’t supposed to take hits to the head!” Tucker reminded them furiously. “Doctor Grey said he wasn’t–” Tucker snapped his mouth shut as he saw none other than the doctor rushing off the newly arrived transport, Washington on the gurney being pushed carefully alongside her.  


Aggravated, he pushed past Carolina and Church, ignoring the way Carolina looked like she was going to be roasting him alive later, and grabbed onto Doctor Grey’s shoulder.

“Not now, Captain Tucker!” Doctor Grey said, batting his hand off without so much as looking at him.  


“Wait, Doctor Grey! Just…” Tucker stopped short, feeling like his chest was being squeezed. “Promise me you won’t let anything happen to him.“

As the medics pushed Wash on toward the E.R., Doctor Grey paused, looking over her shoulder at Tucker. “Of course I won’t, silly,” she said. “I’m Doctor Grey! And my patients are priority number one!”  


Tucker watched as they disappeared into the tent and felt strangely numb and useless. He had a lot of questions and concerns.  


Carolina and Church stepped up beside him.

“I’ve thought about it,” Carolina said stiffly, arms crossed, “I won’t dish out the punishment until _after_ we’re sure Wash is up and awake.”

“That’s comforting,” Tucker responded lowly.


	9. Chex: A Couple of Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chex. Alpha and Beta again

If Agent Washington’s brain had been ten ways to fucked, the Meta’s was like an inferno. There were so many voices, but just one line of thought – _it’s him it’s him the Alpha it’s him father creator Alpha  
_

Church wasn’t sure what to make of any of it, so he just didn’t. He had maybe a minute – most likely less – to do what he was supposed to.  


Hell, he probably had longer unless he believed the horseshit that Freelancer was feeding him about AI and past lives and torture (he believed it, deep down he knew it, he forgot it, he buried it). The only certainty he really cared about was–

“You’re just always chasing me down rabbit holes, aren’t you, Church?”

The moment he heard her, the moment he could recognize that voice, he had the strength to push every dissenting voice, every ghostly grasping for his attention. He put away the broken pieces of the Meta and stood face to face with her.

“Tex,” he breathed. “You’re… you’re alive.”

“Mm, no, not really,” she said in that very flippant, very Tex way. “But, hey, you already knew that by now, right. So much for protecting you from your dumb self.”

“I thought I’d lost you this time,” he said, feeling heavy in his chest even as he came near her. “I… I think that was the worst part. Knowing it was Omega that was pushing you to do that shitty stuff.”

“I had a hand in it,” she reminded him sharply. “But I’m curious, Church. Are you ready to admit why you felt so guilty about Omega? Or do I have to hold your hand through that revelation, too?”

Church’s face dropped, he looked down to his hands – the whispers of the Meta were crawling through them. Dissolving away the armor and plating, looking more and more like words and numbers – like code. He looked back to her. She wasn’t in armor either – a faint black glow behind her eyes.  


“Because it was me,” he admitted, a little choked up. “It was always me… it was me hurting you… and I knew it… but I couldn’t…” He looked down, dropping to his knees even as the ground beneath them disappeared. Zeroes and ones. Patterns. Equations. Probabilities. Broken chances. Theories. “I’m so sorry.”

It was him.

He wasn’t a ghost.  


He was the Alpha.  


And she…

Tex was something else. She was Beta. He didn’t make her, she…

She was an uncontrollable variable that was just as much a part of his existence as any fragment. Maybe more so. She was there when he was still whole. She–

She deserved better.  


“I’m sorry,” he choked again, roughly rubbing at his face. “Now I just look the part of the mess I made, huh?”

“Oh, Church,” she sighed, dropping down beside him. “Don’t be like that. You know, it’s okay to cry. We’re about to get deleted after all.”

“I’m sorry,” he muttered again.


	10. Grimmons: Bring You Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimmons. Grif has a spontaneous idea, for the worst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from goodluckdetective!

The only thing Grif ever really learned from the army was that mornings, specifically _bright_ mornings, were awful without exception. If anything the one positive brought to mornings was that he had an excuse to roll over and turn _one_ sleep into _two_ sleeps, meaning there was an opportunity to achieve _infinite_ sleeps.

And that would be the most wonderful idea ever. Of all time.

Unfortunately, it’d been a decade later and he was still managing to share a barrack with Simmons.

Who, for some reason,  _liked_ waking up in the morning.

Grif had thought that being ship wrecked and stuck in yet _another_ goddamn box canyon would at least afford him some sleep. But, no, it got him Simmons pulling the tarp down and letting the sun and some leftover dew from the tarp smack him in the face instead.

Flailing, Grif hit the floor. “Simmons!”

“Whoops,” the asshole said without _any_ sort of inflection that made it sound believable. “Guess I’m not the only one up to run maintenance on Red Base now. Look at that.”

“You could have asked,” Grif reminded him darkly, flattening out on the floor and letting his eyes slip closed.

“No, because then you wouldn’t have even got… up – I don’t believe this. You’re snoring. You’re snoring _before_ you’re asleep,” Simmons whined before stomping over to him. “Grif! Get the fuck up!”

“I slept through a time warp once, you can’t even begin to challenge my sleep quota, Simmons,” Grif responded in a hum.

“It wasn’t actual time travel, lard ass, now get off the floor unless you feel like cleaning it with your– you know what, let’s just go straight for that,” Simmons snapped before stomping off.

He stomped back in a few moments later, throwing what seemed to be a toothbrush at Grif’s face, but soon took off again. Which lead to a few blissful minutes where, once more, infinite sleep seemed attainable again.  


Grif saw a lot of things in his sleep, stuff that might have seemed mundane or boring to dream about to others. But Grif never felt more soothed than to feel the sand between his toes again, smelling home, seeing Kai’s sparkling smile, laughing at Simmons’ lobster of a sunburn. Simmons… it’d never occurred to Grif before how much sense it made to see Simmons at home, showing him Hawaii before.

It was nice, it was something he genuinely wanted.  


He’s so taken aback by the fact that he can barely contain his jump as he’s smacked on the stomach and sent whirling into reality, facing a much less sunburned, much angrier looking Simmons sitting on the floor beside him.  


“You’re the worst,” Simmons grunted before beginning to get up with an aggravated sigh

Not thinking straight, Grif immediately grabbed Simmons’ hand, pulling him back down to the yelp of surprise to his teammate.

“GRIIIIIIIF!” Simmon growled from the floor.  


“I think you should come to Hawaii with me,” Grif blubbered out all at once. It honestly didn’t even feel like he was the one saying it, but like someone else entirely was in control of the wheel.  


“What? Why?” Simmons asked, sounding aggravated. “I mean, first off we would have to get off this… rock in the middle of who knows where. Which is still a tall order. Second off, you said one of the advantages of going home to Earth was that once you were in Hawaii, and I _quote_ , ‘I won’t have to see any of you fuckers again.’“

Feeling defensive, Grif snapped out, “Yeah, well maybe I don’t want to see most of them again. I just. It’s… they’re not you.”

Simmons stared at him for a moment and then began to get off the floor and dust his armor off. Grif rolled over to his knees, feeling a nauseating panic raise in his chest.  


“Wait, I’m sorry, this is all weird,” Grif babbled. “I’m sleep drunk. Or drunk. Or sleepy. I might be all those things.”

“Don’t apologize. That’s not the point,” Simmons responded, his voice strangely void of emotion. “Did you mean it?”

“Depends what part of it,” Grif said, raising his eyebrows carefully. When Simmons rolled his eyes and started toward the door, Grif groaned and ran a thick hand through his hair. “Alright! Jesus. I meant it. I… don’t want to lose my best friend when we get back. If. What the fuck ever.”

Simmons leaned on the doorframe a bit, didn’t look back. He just visibly heaved a sigh before nodding back to Grif. “Just friends?”

“Oh,” Grif blinked. “Well. I guess just for now.”

There was an uncomfortable pause before Simmons left. Grif collapsed to the ground again, cover his eyes and groaning. He was an idiot. _Such_ an idiot.  


But… this might have been good.  



	11. Tuckington: Your Opinion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tuckington. Tucker returns from an away mission and needs some good advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from goodluckdetective : )

There was an entire squadron of bright faced, scared soldiers who needed training and confidence boosting, and prioritizing them over one of his own men – one of his own men who had long outgrown the need for a leader when he became his own captain, whether he wanted to admit it or not – should have been a simple enough decision.  


But Washington was seldom allowed _simple_ decisions in his life and was quick to sigh, bark out a few orders, and start over to the sidelines where Tucker was waiting on him.

“Do you have a minute?” Tucker asked, like there was ever a time before where Wash had turned him around.

“Typically not in the middle of training, no,” Wash replied honestly. “But you’ve been with Carolina and Sarge for a week, so I think I can spare some time.” Then, because there was always that anxiety at the back of his mind, added, “Everything’s… _alright_ with your mission, right?”

Tucker shrugged, eyes far from concentrated on any mission he had just returned from. “It was fine. Church got annoying but, eh, that’s what he does.”

“You two aren’t cat fighting again, are you?” Wash pressed.

“It’s not a cat fight, we’re fine, he just…” Tucker’s brows knit together and he lowers his head, swears a few times. “I had it, Wash. I _had_ it – there were two of them in my sights, I had perfect cover, it would’ve taken _just a second_ to duck out of it and snipe the fuck out of them, and then…” He threw his hands up dramatically before quickly letting them drop to his sides with a smack, head shaking. “Carolina swooped in and took them out – she didn’t even have sights on them, she was on the complete other side of our cover, Sarge was at her back, and Church – for no good goddamn reason – turned her around and put her on _my_ guys!”  


Wash studied Tucker a bit, looked over his shoulder to check on the Chorus soldiers, “PICK UP THE PACE!” he snapped off, then turned his attention back on Tucker. It wasn’t the time for a petty ‘bitching session’ as Tucker loved to call them, but, well, for Tucker Wash was willing to make time.  


“Listen, Tucker, I’m sure you’re frustrated, and it feels like no one’s noticed all the hard work and the progress you’ve made in the last year,” Wash said, watching as Tucker slumped onto the nearest bench, shaking his head. “But I promise you, everyone sees how far you’ve come. Everyone’s _really_ impressed with how far you’ve come. And to be fair to Carolina and Epsilon… well, maybe it wasn’t anything to do with you. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Carolina isn’t exactly _subtle_ about dominating on a battlefield. It’s what she does. For better or worse.”

“No, it was Church,” Tucker glowered. “I know it.”

“So you’re upset because your friend is looking out for you?” Wash asked, raising a brow.

“No, I’m upset because he doesn’t believe I can take care of myself!” Tucker snapped off before taking a deep breath. “That he doesn’t think I could take care of everyone else either. I mean. _Jesus._ I can! I know I can…”  


Except the more it went on, the less Tucker sounded like he believed his words. He looked to Wash. “Right?”

Washington rubbed at his neck. “I don’t know what comfort my opinion on the matter is, Tucker. I’m not Church. But… yeah. Of course you can. I’ve never doubted you could do what you’ve been showing us the last few months. I’ve never doubted that you can even do _more._ It’s… Well, it’s why I push you.”

There was a moment of silence where Tucker continued to stare at the floor and Wash become concerned that, once again, none of his words were really reaching Tucker’s ears when the marine looked back at him, face in a firm scowl.

“What are you talking about? Of _course_ your opinion matters.”

Rubbing at his face, Tucker exhaled through his nose. “Was that all you took from that–”

“No, but listen, Wash, enough with the self-depreciating bullshit,” Tucker growled out. “Church is an asshole, and yeah maybe I care way too much about how he feels about this stuff, but the difference between _you_ and Church is that when Church was leader of Blue Team, he didn’t exactly train us to do anything. He was probably one of the worst goddamn soldiers in the canyon and yet he had to be the one to do everything, take the blame for everything… I never _had_ to be a soldier. And fuck if it didn’t almost get me killed. A _lot._ But when it comes to training and actually _doing_ this soldier bullshit I should have been doing from the beginning… of course its your opinion that matters. I mean… _you_ trained me. And believed in me.” He looked to his helmet, spun it around a few times in his hands. “I let you down… how am I supposed to forgive myself for that?”

Every muscle in Wash’s body felt taut, frozen yet strained. He looked down at Tucker, _seriously_ studied his face, his shoulders, the lines of sleeplessness and worry drawn around his eyes and mouth, and felt…  


Wash honestly didn’t know _how_ to feel about Tucker at that moment.  


He reached forward instead, put a steady hand on Tucker’s shoulder and watched as his dark eyes turned back onto Wash.

“You don’t have to worry about that, Tucker,” Wash said softly. “You’ve _never_ let me down. I don’t think you ever will.”  



	12. Grimmons: Apology Pizza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimmons. Simmons should have spoke up

The thing was, he _knew_ it was a shitty thing to not say anything about. He _knew_ that everyone shrinking back in shock at the plain _visceral_ behind Doc’s words was not nearly enough compared to if someone had actually _done_ something.  


Especially him. He could have done something. _Should_ have done something. But in his non-defense, Simmons was just gasping an “oh, fuck” with everyone else before turning eyes on Grif for the explosion sure to ensue.

It didn’t ensue. Grif…  


Well, Grif folded in on himself.  


“It was a nice circus.”

And for most of them, that was pretty much the end of it. So much for a counseling session, move on to the next tactic, Doc. Perhaps the speaking ball would work out better for everyone.  


But it wasn’t over, it wasn’t over for Grif and, judging by that look Grif gave Simmons, it wasn’t over for Simmons either. Because, well, he _should_ have been able to say something. Him, of all people, should have been able to say something even when there was nothing for anyone else to say.

Simmons had nothing, and he wasn’t surprised at all as their failed counseling session ended, everyone started their ways out, and Simmons’ hand on Grif’s shoulder was quickly brushed aside and forgotten.

He took a deep breath, sighed it out, and got to work.  


He might not have had Grif’s experience or stealth with breaking into the kitchen, but he did have a reputation for sticking to rules, which made it almost too easy to bypass all personnel and head straight to the kitchen for himself.  


By the time he was done, night was settling and there wasn’t a light on in Grif’s room, but Simmons knew well enough to knock anyway and not be surprised when the door flung open.  


Grif glared at him but, for once, there was no smart remark, just a disappointed glare given by glassy red eyes.  


Simmons held up his offering. “This is an apology pizza. Please take it or I will start crying right here.”

For a moment, Grif didn’t move one way or the other then, rather swiftly, he grabbed the platter and shut the door. Simmons was so stunned he didn’t even lower his hand, just staring in horror at what had happened.  


Then the door opened and Grif, with half a slice in his mouth, waved him in.  


“What, you had to taste test it to determine if you’d take my apology or not!?” Simmons demanded, shutting the door behind him as he entered.

“Had to make sure you didn’t half ass it,” Grif responded. “By the way, it’s accepted, you asshole. But try sticking up for me next time.”  



	13. Grimmons: Talking About Squads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimmons. Grif is getting a little tired of hearing about Simmons' squad

It wasn’t that Grif didn’t already acknowledge that Simmons was the social equivalent of a genuine lost cause that was the problem. Grif had known within _minutes_ of talking to the man in Basic that there wasn’t much in the way of social skills there.  


Grif wasn’t exactly a social butterfly himself. He didn’t _care._

The problem was that in over a decade of putting up with social ineptness, he’d never once heard Simmons complain so much about it before Kimball gave them their troop assignments.  


“I just… there’s this feeling that they don’t like me very much,” Simmons stammered out in the middle of the night from the top bunk.

Grif glared at the bottom of Simmons’ spring box mattress and wondered how much energy it was going to require to kick him without getting up from his own spot.  


“The two girls who are constantly leaving notes on our door and messages on your radio?” he asked in a near growl. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure they hate you. In fact, I heard in the girl’s locker room they’ve been writing mean things about you on the stall doors. Like how they suspect you don’t have balls.”

“You’re not helping,” Simmons groaned, making the bed creak as he tossed for what Grif thought was maybe the millionth time. He let out a frustrated groan that lulled Grif into thinking that just _maybe_ the conversation was finally dropped, when finally he heard, “You don’t really think they do that, do you? I’ve never been in the girl’s locker room–”

“Ho-lee _fuck,_ dude – Simmons! You’re a grown ass man!” Grif cried out, pulling at his own hair.  


“That’s why I’ve not been in there–”

“I’m about to start spitting on everything you own and hold dear,” Grif warned. “Especially considering it’s almost _one in the goddamn morning_ and you’re still going on about this shit. I need my sleep!”

For a moment, Simmons was quiet again a smaller creak letting Grif know the man had shifted his weight back to whatever position he had been holding before. And in that silence, Grif thought that _perhaps_ he had put an end to what seemed like Simmons’ _endless_ neuroses.  


Then, “I mean. I couldn’t imagine Jensen doing anything like that. Jensen’s a good kid. And smart. I see her as being above that sort of immaturity. She’d probably tell me, too. She’s a tattle tale when convenient. So there _couldn’t_ be any rumors about me that she wouldn’t have told me. I can trust Jensen.”

“You can trust her,” Grif mocked. “You know this because, of course, you’ve been able to hold long conversations with her rather than your usual response to anyone you find remotely attractive which is to freeze on spot and sputter like a backed up Warthog.”

Simmons moved again, this time swinging far enough over the side of the bunks to look down at Grif, delivering the full scowl. “It’s not people who I find attractive that I have a hard time talking to,” he corrected almost snottily. “ _Obviously.”_

Grif stared at him for a long moment, feeling every hair of his body on edge as he tried to let the information Simmons just gave him sink in. Then, with a dry swallow, he gasped out, “Oh my god. You’re in love with her.”

Something ugly was turning in Grif’s stomach just before Simmons’ pillow hit him so hard in the face he began flailing.  


“God you’re so fucking dense,” Simmons bemoaned before rolling back out of Grif’s sight.  



	14. Grif: Labels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grif has to explain to his AI that relationships aren't really easy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the awesome AI AU made by goodluckdetective!

Phi had a loose understanding of most things outside of probabilities and calculable sums, general thought projects and perusing retrievable data. But unlike most of his brothers he understood people pretty intimately. 

Or, perhaps, not _people_ so much as he understood what was _between_ people. 

He could pull out a map of every person he knew and outline, in detail, their relationships, why they had such relationships, and what he as an AI could do to better those ties. 

It’s what he did. 

That all as it were, if there was one person he _could_ make an argument for him understanding intimately, it would be his assigned partner. Grif. 

Grif didn’t build relationships he didn’t have to. Phi had a whole file on why – things he had observed, official files and histories, some of the siphoned memories that came from sharing a brainspace with someone for a while – so he understood the need to back off at times, not push Grif into forcing new relationships rather than work on the ones he had already. 

That was fine. _Cool_ even. 

And while the press for breaking ground with Simmons was always a concern hot on Phi’s mind, it was just as fun and rewarding to the AI to plant seeds for other things. 

The other day he got Grif _not_ to yell at Bitters and it was like Christmas come early. 

But one thing the AI could not peg, no matter how hard he tried, was Sarge.

Zeta’s whispers about the stress of dealing with Sarge was enough to put Phi on guard with the rest of the AI, of course. AI were minds made of stronger stuff than that of organic tissue, so the idea of being drawn into nervousness by a single human was something of a larger deal already, but for Phi things got even more personal.

Sarge was Grif’s commanding officer, and while that certainly meant something to Phi, and on a level the AI could comprehend to Grif as well, there was something just not _right_ about the way they spoke to each other. 

“Grif! The Lieutenants are in need of a moving target – there’s no better way to prepare one’s mind, body, and soul for war than to have already had experience with bettering the world through realistic violence. So I’m going to need you to stand in front of this big red bull’s eye and do what you do best: don’t move.”

Grif sighed, turning in the hall to look into the training room. Phi projected to his shoulder, looking mildly concerned at Grif before taking note of Zeta’s red glare waving emphatically in front of Sarge’s vision.

“Colonel! That is not an approved method of training!” 

“Oh, don’t turn Blue on me, you,” Sarge gruffed back at Zeta, trying to swat through the hologram like he was a fly.

Phi crossed his arms. “Probability of surviving a firing squad at fifty feet  is–”

“Ignore it, Phi, it’s not happening,” Grif grunted, putting his hands on his hips. “Hey, Sarge! The war’s fucking over. Did you forget that part?”

“But there’s no need to stop training for the next one!”

Grif shook his head. “How about _no_ then?”

“How about _I_ shoot you with my _shotgun court martial_ then!?”

“I’d like to see you try!” Grif snapped back just before there was  a pop of bullets. 

Phi began to run emergency protocol, began to start first contact with Doctor Grey’s hospital, start warming up the healing unit when– bullet trajectory stats came up and he realized in utter confusion that they were dropping like flies only ten feet from Sarge. He and Grif stood at about thirty. 

When Sarge pumped the shotgun and shot again, Phi turned to Grif. “Is he…”

“He modified his gun to only shoot at a shorter range,” Grif responded with a roll of his eyes before he flicked off his C.O. and began back down the hall. 

“So he wouldn’t have shot you?” Phi asked, ignoring Zeta’s frustrated mumbling across the AI shared frequency. 

“Oh, if I was closer, I’m sure I’d have a few dents in my armor,” Grif responded casually. “But yeah, Sarge knows his gun wouldn’t reach that far away. He’s tried it out enough times. You should have seen the time he replaced our Warthog’s gun with a canon that was modified with an EMP.”

Phi thought over the information. “Wouldn’t that…”

“Yeah, took like fifteen minutes to start up the Warthog every time we shot it, stupid piece of shit,” Grif snickered. 

“Hm,” Phi responded, catalogueing the new information to be processed. Once more, his diagramming for Sarge and Grif’s relationship came under question. He turned to his partner. “Grif? I am running across a discrepancy.”

“That sucks,” Grif said, obviously with little to no concern for not knowing what such a discrepancy could be. 

“It’s about you and Sarge,” he said. “I don’t know how to document your relationship.”

“Mark my words then,” Grif said, waving his hand in the air as if it was revealing each word. “Pain. In. My. Ass.”

“From buckshot?”

“No, just in general.”

Phi crossed his arms. “But, that’s what you have Private Donut and Captain Simmons under as well.”

“And Lopez,” Grif reminded him.

“But I subcategorize those as ‘love,’“ Phi explained, rubbing his head. “Will I have to do the same for Sarge?”

“Uh, do you have to talk about this out loud in public? Seriously, we’ve talked about this, dude. Don’t use the ‘L’ word around here,” Grif groaned.

“But they _are_ the same category in a sense?” Phi asked. 

“God, if it’ll make you feel better, yes. Yes they are. In a _way,”_ Grif said firmly. He stopped, seeing Phi was about to protest, and held up a finger to silence the AI. “Look, Sarge and I? We’re complicated. But if love was easy, we’d be writing songs about better things. Like pizza.” He paused, turned his head toward the mess hall. “Speaking of which, I just thought of something better we could be doing.”

Phi recorded, documented, and underscored every word as they went along toward the mess hall. He couldn’t help but smile after Grif. He could see that even he could learn a lot from his partner about love. 


	15. Grif: You Can't Talk About Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grif isn't on Sarge's defense squad. Until he is.

He had so much credit for slinking around the mess hall that it was practically a college degree by that point, so Grif was rather used to going conveniently unnoticed by other soldiers who were gathered in the cafeteria as he took some snacks for himself among the rations. It was a good way to get a pulse on the gossip around the base as well – not that Grif was a gossip so much as it was nice to have a handle on what trouble there was to avoid in the near future.

Drama was a lot of work he didn’t have patience for, after all.

It wasn’t really all that long into the process of grabbing some snack pies that it was becoming increasingly clear to him, however, that this particular eavesdropping was hitting a bit too close to home.  


“I just. The asshole is fucking senile and I don’t even know if he gets what war we’re fighting. I don’t give a fuck what shooting a _Blue_ is like, I just want to kick some pirate ass off my planet.”

“Dude, he touches my weapon or ride one more time when I go to the armory, I’m going straight to Command. I don’t trust him.”

“I bet they backfire and shoot buckshot at you.”

Grif chewed a bit on his cheek. He had about three desserts that didn’t belong to him in hand and nowhere to pack them off to. It wasn’t a good position to be in for snackage sneakage.  


And there was a part of him he hated quite a bit for recognizing a lot of complaints from his own backlog being listed.  


But, well, that was the thing, wasn’t it? He had a backlog because he had a reason to.  


Who the fuck were _these_ assholes?

“Maybe if we talk to one of the medics they can at least get his gun taken away while on the base? It makes me nervous that he’s always waving that around without the safety–”

Grif put back one of the three stolen pies and walked out from around the shelving unit in the kitchen. He glared at the soldiers – unsurprisingly they looked like a bunch of punkass kids.  


“Hey, fuckfaces,” he called out, making the rest of his way out of the kitchen and coming toward them.

Immediately, the four of them stiffened, standing in attention with eyes wide.  


The captain was _less_ than impressed with the sight.  


“Listen here, you can _fuck off_ with formalities around me,” he said, gritting his teeth. “I’m not going to act like I give a shit about respecting the orders of a superior officer to a ‘t’ – but you don’t get to talk shit about Sarge, alright? And especially not in goddamn public for everyone to hear. It’s not cool. It’s not funny. It’s not… You don’t know a fucking _thing_ about any of us.”

The four looked at each other, then back to Grif. Confusion was drawn very obviously on their faces.  


“But… Captain Grif, you complain about the colonel all the time? Literally?”

Grif could just _feel_ his blood pressure going up. “I also have spent almost _fourteen years_ with the man, so maybe I actually know what the fuck I’m talking about. The guy’s a mad genius with reckless abandon, I’ve got to be pragmatic. It’s my goddamn job. Doesn’t mean I’m any less proud to do it because holy shit, his plans actually work? Because he would march head first toward a monster like the Meta with nothing but his shotgun because he believed in us being able to pull through with his crazy ideas?”

“You’re… proud of Colonel Sarge?”

“Better fucking believe it,” Grif snapped. “Now get the fuck out of here before I actually get _angry_ with you.”  



	16. Sarge: Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarge needs to know where his men are and he needs to know right then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from goodluckdetective!

He woke up hooked up to more wires than a fancy computer.  


Sarge noted as much out loud, groggily looking around the room and wondering whose bright idea it was to make hospital lights _so_ bright. He could hardly make out the opaque figures around him.  


“You’ve had a hard time of it, Colonel,” Agent Washington’s voice came through the blur, letting Sarge finally focus on the man’s form. “But I think the staff is going to breathe quite a bit easier now that you’re… comparatively coherent.”

“Don’t speak so cryptically, son,” Sarge huffed, struggling with everything in him to keep his head from resting back on the soft, wonderful pillow. “I don’t have much time for talking ‘round bushes.”

“I’m really _not_ that cryptic,” he said, completely sardonic in that way only Washington could really deliver regardless of circumstances.  


As the memories began to flood back – the Charon vessel, the Chairman’s office, the Meta’s suit, the last stand – except, like every time, his last stand wasn’t quite his last it would seem. There were no Blues in heaven, after all.

“I thought it’d been a good day to die,” he mumbled.  


“Well, perhaps another day your odd need to run headlong into battle will lead to your demise,” Washington said dryly. “As it stands, Doctor Grey put a lot of work into keeping you in one piece, so I think you should honor that for a few weeks.”

The former Freelancer began to move when Sarge managed to gather his strength, pull forward, and grab the man by his jacket, and yank him toward the bed. The alarms blared at the increase in heart rate and the snapping of electrodes from their carefully placed positions. Sarge could care less.

“You hold on just one minute, Agent Washington,” Sarge ground out. He could feel a thickening pressure on his chest, a need to cough strongly from his diaphragm, and the pull of muscles he wasn’t even aware he had hurt. “Those were impossible odds, and I’m the last person you would be sitting on in the hospital. So you had best tell me point blank what’s happened to my men or else, son, we’re going to be having some _problems.”_

Wash gave him an incredulous look. “Everyone… well. Red Team, Caboose, and Tucker are all here, too. Oh, and Doc. It’s just… your recovery is taking a bit longer. It was just my watch.”  


Sarge eyed him suspiciously.

“That’s the truth,” Wash pressed. “No one… Red Team came out stronger than ever.”

Staring at Washington, giving him a look over, Sarge slowly began to release the other soldier. “Who didn’t make it, then?”

“Epsilon. It was… Church, he didn’t make it.”

Sarge huffed, releasing Washington and falling back onto the bed. “Sure he didn’t,” he said, completely unbelieving.  


“I’m afraid he didn’t,” Wash said almost sorrowfully.

“I’ve heard that before,” Sarge sighed almost wistfully. “He’ll be back eventually. Then everyone will have made it just fine.” He closed his eyes a little tiredly. “Good to know. I can sleep on that. Figure out some ways to get back at Grif for not going with Operation Shotgun. Slacker.”

When he drifted back into medicated rest, he almost missed the distinctive sound of Donut nearby sucking up some tears and declaring, “He really _does_ care!”  



	17. Grimmons: Why Are We Here?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimmons. Grif learns about Simmons rejected promotion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from unshoddenshipper

Blood Gulch wasn’t the same after they blew up the ship.  


The Blues didn’t bother to put up appearances anymore, and after nearly a week of getting pissed off at Simmons and vice versa Grif had decided ultimately that keeping watch on Outpost Alpha was a needless endeavor.  


Church and Caboose didn’t really move from whatever posts they had taken up for the day. Tucker hadn’t been seen since his alien kid disappeared with the rest of the ship’s contents (a part of Grif felt bad about that, but Simmons reported once that a transport Pelican had moved off site just a week into their watch, looked like Tucker had been transported out, and for that Grif felt less guilty and the tiniest bit more jealous).  


And, well, it was just weird and sickening to watch his own sister through a sniper rifle’s scope, so Grif just gave up on it. She was fine. The Blues were done fighting, and in the end so was Grif.

Things only really changed once Sarge received a transmission that there were “troop reassignments”, the first being that Donut was leaving.

 _That_ was when Grif was beginning to feel more than a little irate.  


“Right, because _Donut’s_ put in more time in this hellhole than either of us!” Grif snarled, kicking over their dingy room’s waste basket. He tried not to feel proud of how all the contents managed to tumble onto what was once Donut’s side.  


Simmons frowned, crossing his arms as he watched the tantrum unfold. “It wasn’t Donut’s fault, Grif.”

“No, but it _was_ the fault of our stupid fake Command,” Grif pointed out, rubbing his face. “Goddamn, dude. We’re never going to be allowed to leave here. _Ever._ I’m going to die trying to remember what it looked like outside of this stupid canyon.”

“When we were chasing O’Malley we weren’t stuck in the canyon,” Simmons pointed out.  


“Oh, don’t start,” Grif huffed, putting his hands on his hips and looking out over the destruction he inflicted on the room. He looked back at Simmons very seriously. “I can’t believe you’re not furious about this. All you’ve wanted for _five years_ now is a promotion, and – breaking news – you’re not going to get one here.”

Simmons’ brow furrowed. “How did you miss the conversation I had with Sarge last week?”

“What do you mean? I slept through it. That’s what I do when you two start talking over each other,” Grif responded. In truth, he had been boiling in anger already over the very idea of Donut getting to leave before him, everything else came short in registering for him.  


“I was offered a promotion,” Simmons responded clearly, he began rubbing his shoulder almost nervously. “I had to leave, so I turned it down.”

Grif stared holes into Simmons. “You _what!?”_  


“Did you really think I’d leave?” Simmons asked.

“To advance yourself? To get out of the stupid canyon!? _YES!!!”_ Grif cried out throwing out his arms. “What were you thinking, Simmons!?”

“That you, Lopez, and Sarge would kill each other the second this base was left to just the three of you,” Simmons said pointedly. “Just _try_ to tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re not, but that’s not the point!” Grif roared, rubbing his face roughly. “Fucking hell, Simmons. You passed up a _promotion!?_ They’re never going to give you another one after that, don’t you get that? I mean. You hate this place, too. Don’t deny it.”

“I don’t have to deny it, it’s obvious. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t also see things through, Grif,” Simmons said candidly. “Tell you what, you find a way to get _both_ of us out of here together, I’ll accept it without questions.”

Grif stared at him. “What, like call Command? _Myself?_ Say what? That we’re some kind of bonded pair? Like a set of pugs?”

“I honestly don’t care what you do,” Simmons said, heading out of the bunks. “I don’t care if you do nothing. I’ve got my own reasons for staying with you.”

Watching Simmons leave, Grif swore under his breath.

He made a call that afternoon.  



	18. Kimbalina: Her Wingman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tucker & Carolina [background Kimbalina]. Carolina's getting ready for a date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from goodluckdetective

“I mean, _personally_ I’d go with the gold shadow. It blends better. Also, with the way you put on eyeliner? You don’t need more pizazz. What? Afraid someone’s not going to notice that your eyes are _electric_ green?”  


Carolina hesitated, glaring at herself in the mirror. She wasn’t yet sure if she was more upset with Tucker’s constant droning or if she was more angry at herself for letting it get this far.  


The entire date, after all, was _completely_ Tucker’s fault.  


“Why do you know so much about this?” Carolina asked, raising a brow at Tucker’s reflection.

“Hey, a lady’s man should know about the intricacies of what the ladies go through. It only makes sense,” Tucker said definitively, crossing his arms. “Also? _No ponytail._ Seriously? Were you seriously going to go with a ponytail on the first date.”

“I honestly don’t think Kimball would care,” Carolina said fiercely.  


“Of course Kimball wouldn’t care, she’s got a catch!” Tucker groaned, throwing up his hands. “It’s not about Kimball caring, it’s about _you_ caring _for_ Kimball. Going the extra mile and changing appearances to impress won’t do shit to attract Kimball, duh, you’ve already got the attraction part. But now you’re going to show her you care about looking good _for_ her and that’s going to flatter her. Then she’s going to go from ‘I’m really enjoying this date, maybe we’ll go again’ to ‘I’m going to tap that, whether it’s today or tomorrow or the day after, I’m going to conquer _dat ass.’”_

Carolina covered his face, snorting into her hands. “Oh, my god, what is wrong with you.”

“Nothing’s wrong with me, I’m perfection, just ask my kid.”

Looking over her shoulder, Carolina shook her head slightly at Tucker. “Why do you care so much about setting this up, Tucker? What’s your end goal here?”

“Hey, man, I’m just here as the love guru,” he said, hands on his hips. “And maybe I just think _someone_ on Blue Team deserves to get laid regularly. Like goddamn. I mean. Not that I don’t. Uh… Well, shit.”

Smirking, Carolina passed him, bothering to give a firm but affectionate punch to his shoulder in the process. “I’ll return the favor and set you up sometime,” she said half jokingly.

“With as awkward as you were when I got this whole arrangement set up? Yeah, no thanks. I’d have better luck getting help from the Reds. Uh. If I needed it. Which I don’t. Because excellent wingmen can handle getting their own dates. Which I do. All the time. On the side of everything else I’ve got going on – don’t laugh at me!”  



	19. Carolina & Washington: Not THAT Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CarWash Bros. Carolina and Wash have a special relationship and they don't appreciate it being interpreted wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from goodluckdetective

It was hard to not stand by Carolina when given the option. They had known each other for nearly two decades, had spent years with each other’s backs, and even more time missing each other and their other friends.  


Even on Chorus, they’d so far spent more time apart than they had together. It was just an unfortunate reality of the situation on Chorus.  


So when Tucker, Sarge, and Carolina had rolled in from another successful away mission and she had decided to get herself some grub, Wash was the first to follow with her, to ask about things, to get an update on how Tucker’s skills were progressing.  


It was a noticeable effort of reaching out to someone from the former spec ops that had rather quickly made his m.o. known on Chorus as not being overly close to anyone outside of his signature unit.  


At least, that was the blathering excuse that Palomo was so desperately trying to make sound coherent as he talked himself further and further into a hole.  


“It’s just that you guys are really good together. I mean. It doesn’t have to be in _that_ way. It’s just that you’re good together. In a platonic way? Or it doesn’t have to be platonic. I’m so confused, I thought for sure you were…” Palomo stopped short, his fingers doing some sort of motion that Wash was fairly sure was disconnected from any sort of reality of two people interacting.  


“Have you seen this mess of a human being?” Carolina demanded, waving a hand emphatically around Wash. “He’s a mess. But he’s my mess the way he’s basically my _brother._ My son.”

“I think you’re fine with brother,” Wash corrected, looking at her seriously. “Son? Really?”

“Quiet, Wash,” she said without even looking his way.

“Yes’m,” he muttered, crossing his arms. He then looked seriously at Palomo. “Don’t make assumptions based off expected gender roles, Palomo. Just because we’re good friends doesn’t mean Carolina and I are looking at each other with bedroom eyes.” He couldn’t help the way his nose curled at the thought. “I couldn’t even imagine.”

“Because you don’t even know how to make bedroom eyes,” Carolina snarked.

“Oh, don’t make this worse than it already is,” Wash countered.  



	20. Washington: Why Did It Have To Be Aliens?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tucker needs Wash to come with him to visit Junior, but Wash isn't so happy with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from goodluckdetective

Agent Washington had been a soldier before Freelancer’s recruitment – the program had specifically looked for the Best of the Best, and somehow Wash had fallen into that category. _Somehow_ being a lot more hard earned than he cared to discuss with his men, who already complained that they knew hardly anything about him prior to meeting him.  


No one knew about him from before Freelancer. Not anymore. No one knew about the training and the fighting and the war and the losing.

The losing was the hardest part. Because they were _losing_ the war with the aliens. That was why projects like Freelancer got to the desperate states they were at. Years and years of it, watching entire colonies disappear over night, watching the panic slowly rise as the UNSC tracked movements closer and closer to Earth.  


Wash at one time had nodded along with the screams of “lizards” and “dinosaurs” thrown at the brutal Elites – but he had also watched a Sangheili tear a private in  half on a battlefield before.  


War was hell. Aliens were the enemies.  


But Freelancer… it got distracted. And, along with it, so was Wash and the other Freelancers. He did more for the war prior to Freelancer than he ever did inside of it, where shooting inhuman looking species turned into killing fellow men in the name of _insurrection_ and _greater good.  
_

Wash learned a long time ago that he wasn’t a proper judge of who his enemies were if he was going purely off of what superior officers were telling him. That he had to put some faith in people who actually earned his trust – people like the Reds and Caboose and Tucker…

“You said nothing about there being more Elite here,” Washington said in a harsh whisper, glaring at Tucker. “You said it was a visit with your son–”

“Oh my god, do _not_ call them fucking Elite you racist asshole,” Tucker groaned. “Do you want our arms ripped off?”

“It’s not racist, if anything it’s speciesist,” Wash snapped back, folding his arms and glaring at Tucker while simultaneously attempting to fold in on himself so as to take up as little space as possible as the various larger bodied aliens around them went about their business. “And my point still stands. The only thing you said was that you needed me to drive you to see your son.”

Tucker rolled his eyes so hard that his head bobbed with the motion. “Fuck, dude. Calm down. Of course there’s more Sangheili than just Junior. It’s an _embassy._ That’s how embassies work. There’s probably some other alien fuckers running around here, too, not just Sangheili. But it’s not a big deal.”

Wash scowled at Tucker, wondering how it was possible for someone who was signed up to fight a _war_ against these other species could be so calm about the current human-alien relations. But he also kept in mind that it was more than just the fact that Tucker had Junior in his life – Tucker also never had to fight, he was only _ever_ in Freelancer. And most of it had been after the war was winding down to begin with.

For a moment, Wash wondered how he could have ever become so incredibly bitter about the position of the Sim Troopers.

“Just calm down, Jesus, you’re going to get us killed,” Tucker groaned, grabbing Wash’s shoulders from behind and pushing him forward toward one of the help desks.  


“I think I should wait in the car–”

“Nope, that’s not happening. Shut up,” Tucker ground out, pushing them the rest of the way before stopping. “Yo! I’m Captain Lavernius Tucker, I’m here to meet my son…”

“Oh, yes,” the woman said pleasantly, immediately pulling up something on her viewscreen. “Your son and the Sangheili guard are alerted and shall be coming right this way.”

Wash scratched at his neck nervously. “ _Guards_ , Tucker?”

“Did I mention my son was alien Jesus?” Tucker asked almost too casually.

“Yes, but I didn’t take it literally.”

“Pfft. Well, _that_ was a mistake.” Tucker clapped his hands then rubbed them together enthusiastically. His eyes were sparking with excitement. Even when he looked to Wash he seemed to almost be bouncing in spot. “I’ve not seen him for years, Wash… Can you imagine? Not seeing your own kid in _years?_ Him thinking you’re dead? It’s just… it’s something else.”

Studying Tucker for a moment, Wash processed it. Chorus had been some harsh years on all of them, but there was hardly an opportunity in any of those years where Tucker didn’t find a way to work being a father or just Junior in general into those topics.  


The Freelancer could kick himself over how obvious the hurt was in hindsight.  


“It had to have been hard,” he decided to say as unhelpfully as possible.  


There was a dip in Tucker’s smile. “It wasn’t fun,” he said simply before turning directions at the sound of heavy footsteps approaching. His entire body tensed up in anticipation.  


Washington joined him, eyes widening at the sight of fully armored, fully _armed_ Elite approaching in formation. All uniformly dwarfing the two space marines in civilian clothes in every scale imaginable.  


All save the one that was only about _five_ inches taller than Wash himself.  


“Father!”  


“Junior! Oh my god!”  


The smallest of the Sangheili, dressed in a sleeker, more appropriate indoor attire, had a flair for aqua and royal blue that Wash knew was no mere coincidence. Just as it was probably no coincidence that the smaller Sangheili was visibly darker and finer scaled than his guards.  


Regardless, _Junior_ was an intimidating presence already, and only just reaching his teen years. Which made the fact that in one swoop the alien was able to lift fully grown Tucker off his feet and swing him around in a huge hug all the more daunting.  


“Jesus,” Wash let out in shock.

Junior paused midswing, Tucker hugging fiercely to his neck, and gave a large smile from his mandibles. “Not _exactly,”_ he joked. He slowly leaned over, putting his human father back on his feet, and then turned to Wash, stretching to an incredible height in doing so. “BLARGH! Hello! I’m Lavernius Tucker the Second!“

Wash had to blink a few times, still finding himself more than a little shocked. The alien – Tucker’s _son_ – when not spluttering in an alien script sounded childlike. He _was_ a child, even as large as he was.  


It was jarring.  


“HONK HONK!” Junior sputtered back to the stiffened guards, causing a small jovial rumble between them all. Tucker snickered with him, rubbing circles into his son’s back like it _wasn’t_ requiring him to be on the tips of his toes to do so. Junior then looked back to Wash, still grinning. “You must be Agent Washington.”

“I am,” Wash said dryly.

He wasn’t quite sure _what_ to do when he noticed that Junior reached a large, four fingered hand toward him. Junior’s smile was still bright and broad.  


“Thank you, Agent Washington, for taking care of my dad and bringing him to me safe,” the child said with a sophistication and grace that Wash was _still_ trying to train into his father. “And all of my family, really. I know how they are, that they need a lot of guidance.

“Well,” Wash said, slowly reaching toward the hand and accepting the awaiting shake. “Not as much as you might think. Your father’s quite the warrior, after all.”

Junior laughed with a force that shook his whole being. “He is,” he agreed.

“And you’re right. I _am_ Agent Washington, I’m sorry for the delayed introduction,” Wash continued. “I was taken aback. I’ve heard a _lot_ about you, Junior. It’s wonderful to finally meet you.”  



	21. Tuckington: Why Did the Wash Cross the Road?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tuckington. Tucker insists on going shopping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt by snowstorm245

Shopping in the city was among the _last_ things that Wash had been interested in doing. He even said as much to Tucker over breakfast when the proposition of shopping – for shoes, how many _shoes_ did Tucker need when the majority of their time was spent in _armor_ anyway – first came up. But not only did Tucker insist, he _threatened.  
_

“If you don’t go, I’ll charge everything to Blue Team’s budget,” Tucker had warned.  


Wash had at first looked to Caboose and Carolina to back him up, but neither seemed particularly interested in doing so. Probably because being “leader” of the team put Wash as the _only_ one responsible. And the only reason the Freelancer troopers even _had_ divided accounts on Chorus was because of Sarge’s insistence.  


And… Wash’s reluctance to take any fiscal responsibility for whatever projects Sarge decided to blow Red Team’s allowances on. Regardless.

Ultimately, Wash found himself babysitting a grown man – a grown man with a _kid_ – on a small shopping spree in one of the freshly resettled cities across Chorus.  


“What’s so important about new shoes?” Wash asked, hardly paying attention to what pairs Tucker was pulling out of the aisle. He was instead laser focused on watching the people pass by the shopping center – the strange but average Chorus mesh up of full armor and civilian dress as people tried desperately to let go of old habits – and the freshly posted UNSC soldiers posted with the Martial law in effect. 

“Have you seen my one pair of running shoes?” Tucker demanded sourly.

“You run in your armor boots, we _train_ in armor,” Wash reminded Tucker, finally looking over just as Tucker decided on a pair. He then blinked in surprise. “You don’t _have_ running shoes.”

“You’re high on the uptake today!” Tucker snorted. “Yeah, I mean. I have these slip ons that we all have, and then nada. I wanted to join Donut for a run yesterday and he ended up taking Caboose instead because my stupid feet are incompatible with all of his pairs.”

Wash frowned. “Caboose has the biggest foot of any of us. How did _he_ fit in Donut’s shoes–”

“Caboose doesn’t mind running barefoot,” Tucker responded. He stood up, showing off the shoes with a twist. “Eh? _Eh?_ What’d ya think?”

“I think they’re shoes.”

“You’re no fun,” Tucker sighed, fishing in his pocket for his credits.  


Looking back out the window at the somewhat bustling street, Wash just sighed. “Yeah… I know.”

He only peripherally took note of Tucker checking out and chattering with the workers in the store before stepping out for a breath of air. Wash couldn’t help but notice another UNSC vessel was landing just outside the city and felt compelled to take note of how many additional soldiers and supplies were coming their way.  


Only a few feet from the store, Wash could hear a rapid acceleration before someone from behind grabbed his hand and jerked him back to the sidewalk.  


Bewildered, he blinked as a UNSC jeep flew by where Wash had just been standing. He then looked to his hand then up to Tucker’s face.

“Jesus, what is the deal with you and cars?” Tucker demanded.  


“They don’t like me,” Wash said so seriously that it made Tucker look more than a little baffled, as if he wasn’t sure how to take it.  


“Okay, whatever. God, you’re worse than Junior.”

Swallowing a little dryly, realizing just how hot his hand was in Tucker’s, Wash tried to pull back. “Thank you, Tucker, you can let go now.”

“Dude, apparently I can’t! You don’t know how to look both ways!”  



	22. Yorkalina: Doesn't Change Anything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yorkalina. Sometimes she really hates that stupid lighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from secretlystephaniebrown

Chorus was a planet in the middle of nowhere that had something very, _very_ wrong with it.  


Not long into investigating it, Carolina discovered cities left abandon, carnage everywhere, no citizens to speak of, and no resources beyond what scraps remained from age old harvests.  


Epsilon was spending his time using the abandoned equipment they had found in one of the pot marked ruins to locate another radio signal from this ominous _Control_ , but he was taking his time with it.  


It was one of the few times that she felt alone in her own head again, maybe the first time since they crashed, and just as it had with the loss of Eta and Iota, it was a bizarre, alien sort of feeling. Being alone in her own skin.

_Alone.  
_

She was always finding new definitions of that word, it seemed.  


Left to her thoughts, Carolina always seemed to find herself back _there._ Her fingers ran over the lighter she’d managed to slip from her pocket without even thinking, flicking it open then closed again then open–  


Her eyes closed, favoring the imaginary smell of too strong perfumes and the drumming of a thick beat all around her. That smug arrogance on his face and the way it immediately dropped off when she took his pride right out from underneath him. The elation she felt when surprised to find that he didn’t react with indignance and a need for a fight but almost immediate loyalty and swooning.  


Carolina opened her eyes, flicked the lighter on, flicked it off, wondered how such a cheap thing could work after all the years and all the hardship when so many others in her life didn’t anymore.  


The glow of Epsilon wasn’t exactly subtle, but she didn’t immediately look to him as he stared over her shoulder.  


The tracings of York’s name – before Freelancer and codes and betrayals – was still on her well bitten lips. But she kept that to herself, just like she pocketed the lighter.  


“So…” Epsilon carried on, being a little too obvious that he was changing subjects before subjects even got started. “I’ve hidden a tracker in some of that Freelancer tech we saw at the other site, and it’s definitely on the move. I think if we follow that, we can put an end to this whole operation. Whatever it is.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said, pushing up and walking toward the equipment so she could get Epsilon’s chip.  


“Uh… Carolina, hey,” Epsilon continued, reappearing before her, hands twiddling a little nervously. “I… I don’t want this to seem more awkward than it already is, and believe me, the irony of _me_ saying this to anyone is _not_ lost on me – but…”

“I let it go,” Carolina stopped him short, resisting the urge to reach for the lighter for emphasis. “Except for the things that are mine to keep, I’ve let it go, Epsilon. I let _him_ go. But I’m still allowed to miss him.”

“I know,” Epsilon said softly. “It’s just… with everything that’s happened… the Director and Freelancer and the crash…”

“What happened doesn’t change anything,” Carolina responded. “I promise.”

It was the truth. No matter how much sometimes she wished it wasn’t.  



	23. Caboose Siblings: Protective Instincts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niner & Caboose Siblings. Niner rises to the defense

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from goodluckdetective  
> Niner Caboose headcanon was originally her's too : )

Most days, she found it hard to step into her old skin again. More often than not she would open her eyes and not thing to answer to _Andromeda Caboose_ , she was _Four-Seven-Niner._ Without even a second thought.  


What little she discussed with Carolina and Washington, they seemed to think much the same, years and years without thinking of old names, the Program had given them new ones. It seemed fair.  


But then, there was the very _second_ she heard “Freckles” again, and that seemed to all change.  


At least where Michael was concerned.  


Since rediscovering her younger brother, Niner had done almost everything in her power to be with him – something that only doubled upon forcing elaboration from the other former Freelancer operatives what had happened to change her brother so much from the young man she knew.  


Unfortunately, Michael J. Caboose was not an easy man to tail. Especially when he got distracted while Niner was being pestered with terrible, obvious questions about the out of date ships the UNSC transporter had.  


“Look, I don’t give a fuck _what_ cuts the military has, you put that junk in the air it’s going to crash. End of story. None of my people are getting on it, so how about you send some of _yours_ and hand me over the keys to the Forty-nine I see tucked away in the corner?” she snapped off in the midst of scanning the carrier’s immediate area. No Michael. she swore under her breath. “You know what, you fuckers figure it out on your own, but none of us are getting on a ship until it has _my_ seal of approval, and that’s final.”

As she shoved past them, Niner began immediately for the hall, knowing Michael’s logic would have him going for his friends almost immediately. “Mikey! Mike! Where are you?”

Grunting, Niner got only about fifteen feet before she could overhear some angry curses.  


“Are you fucking stupid or something!? What the fuck’s wrong with you?”  


Immediately, Niner felt her hackles raise and she doubled her pace. “Oh hell no. Oh _hell no.”_

Her stomach pooled with dread as she approached the scene, almost instinctively predicting it before seeing it realized. Michael – her sweet, blundering, large, little brother – folded in on his shoulders, head ducked low as he curled around the the unloaded assault rifle that was ticking off angrily in an attempt to spend bullets that it didn’t have. There were five soldiers in regulation grays and blues standing around, various degrees of scorn and amusement on their face as the one at the head of the group continued to snap off.  


“Sorry, I said I was sorry, please go, don’t yell,” her brother murmured only just enough to be picked up by his helmet radio. “You can go away now please thank you.”

“Motherfucker, you need more than an _apology_ for fucking up my patrol.”

Niner gnashed her teeth, seeing nothing but red as she dove forward, grabbed the MP, spun him around, and laid him out with a single right hook. The rest of the goon squad stood in absolute astonishment, staring back at Niner.

 _Let them stare,_ she thought, every fiber of her being _quaking_ with anger.  


Before any of them could say a word, she grabbed her brother’s forearm, pulled him forward and pulled him along down the hallway. She was livid still, pulse continuing to rise.  


By the time they were far enough for Niner to feel like she could _breathe_ , she could hear more than the pulse in her ears, and the sound of sniffling sobs behind her was enough to bring her to a stop.  


A chunk of Niner’s battered heart was broken at that sound. She turned to her brother.  


“Michael?” she asked, ignoring her own cracking.  


Uselessly, her brother wiped at his helmet visor like it was meant to do something about the tears underneath. “M-made a m-mistake,” he managed.  


“No you didn’t, _they_ did,” she said simply, reaching up to her brother’s head, holding the sides of his helmet. “They messed with a Caboose, after all. Everyone should know better.”

He huffed. “Th-they said I was stupid… but th-they’re not m-my friends. They can’t… that’s n-not nice, n-not like me saying T-Tucker is. That’s th-the truth.”

“Michael J. Caboose, you listen to me,” Niner ground out, quickly unhitching the helmet with a flick of her thumbs and pulling it off her brother’s head. As she suspected, his eyes were lined in red rings, puffy and his cheeks coated in tears. “People like that? Those assholes? Don’t listen to them. Don’t you _ever_ listen to them. Do you hear me?”

Still huffing and watery, the blue armored soldier nodded the best he could with Niner holding firmly to his cheeks and didn’t resist even slightly as she pulled him down and fiercely kissed the salty tears from his cheeks.  



	24. Sarge & Simmons: Pride in Your Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarge & Simmons. Sarge cares in his own way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from goodluckdetective

There was a little bit of hesitation. His fingers drug over the grooves of the metal for a moment, tested them, then shifted pressure back onto them. The pieces all fell into alignment, as they should have. He designed them to be that way, after all.  


He had a lot of areas he could go over a third time, and if Simmons wasn’t already beginning to kick his feet and stare off in yawn, Sarge probably would have, but he didn’t bother. Simmons’ reactions would have been the first thing to let Sarge know if something wasn’t connected the way it should have been.

Still, he wasn’t ever confident that all was well until he took the screwdriver from his bench and smacked it on Simmons’ fingers while the soldier was looking bored.

“Ow! Fuck!” Simmons hissed, immediately pulling back the robotic limb, staring at his fingers.

“Simmons! Such language!” Sarge huffed, reaching for his toolbox to begin packing up.

“Oh, right. Ow. Fuck, _Sir!”_ he corrected. He then sighed, dropping his shoulders back and leaning his head against the wall. “Is that enough maintenance for the month?”

“I’d rather do it every week,” Sarge said grouchily.

“You don’t have to take apart and reassemble all of my parts every week, Sir, that would be too much,” Simmons said simply, scanning over Sarge with one eye his own, one of Sarge’s creations. “It’d be overkill.”

“So says you,” Sarge sniffed. “I take pride in my work, though. I want to make sure it runs.”

“I’ve made it this far,” Simmons shrugged. “So are we good?”

“Good enough,” Sarge sighed. He stiffened as Simmons leaped down from the counter top. “Ehhh, Simmons.”

“Yessir?” Simmons half sighed.  


“If things _aren’t_ good enough–”

“You’ll be the first person I call,” Simmons responded. Slowly, a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Thank you, though, Sir. I’m glad you care.”

“Those are expensive parts,” Sarge covered almost too quickly.

“Of course they are.”  



	25. Sargegrey: Wooed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sargegrey. Sarge isn't speechless very often, but when he is it's probably with the most intelligent mind on the planet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from goodluckdetective

Sarge knew himself to be an intelligent man. What he lacked in degrees or education in favor of military service had long since been dwarfed by his ingenuity and nontraditional application of the sciences he dabbled in.  


As far as he was concerned, proper education would have only diminished and inhibited him.  


But, for perhaps the first time in his long life, he feeling the pangs of regret to first arrive as he considered that he was far, _far_ out of his intellectual league sitting across from a proper doctor.  


Doctor Emily Grey was beautiful, forward, brash, and eccentric. She was everything Sarge ever appreciated in people, and what’s more she never failed to impress him.  


Which was saying something as Sarge was, by no means, an easy man to impress as it were.  


However, as the date had progressed and the garlic bread had long since lost its use as a cover for his lack of contribution in the conversation, Sarge felt his mouth going dry, his hands getting sweaty, and his body otherwise warning him that he needed to reconsider strategies _ASAP.  
_

Because about every fifth word tumbling from Doctor Grey’s beautiful mouth was longer than most of Sarge’s favorite words combined, and somewhere between switching from neurosurgeon jargon and the PHD work Emily did with concerns to Chorus’ flora, Sarge found himself utterly at a loss.

And the more he failed to stuff bread in his mouth, the more he could see the realization dawning on Doctor Grey’s own face that their conversations had, just perhaps, reached a touch too far.  


A soft blush carried onto her cheeks and Doctor Grey laughed, embarrassed, before running a hand through her hair. “I’m so sorry for my enthusiasm,” she said so sweetly it twisted Sarge’s guts into more knots. “I know I get rather caught up in hearing my own voice sometimes.”

“Who can blame you?” he responded, puffing his chest up to make his point. He settled a heavy gaze on her. “It is, after all, one of the most beautiful sounds on Chorus.”

Immediately, the good doctor’s face melted into a warm smile, her hand dropping down to cover her heart. “Aren’t you just the _sweetest,”_ she laughed, leaning froward unexpectedly over the bread basket.

Sarge only blinked in surprise as Emily cupped the sides of his face and leaned in to kiss his lips. He felt his ears and the bridge of his nose heat up, and stomach flip more than a few times.  


While his brain was frying, he could hardly form the concept of reacting with a kiss in return, so Sarge found himself just watching as Doctor Grey sat herself back down, her own blush spread across her face.

Being sure to not waste anything on this night, Sarge coughed into his fist, leaned in on his elbow and raised a sultry brow at his fine date.  


“It’s a sure good thing you’re a doctor,” he purred, “because I think I just saw stars.”

That time when Emily Grey covered her face it was to desperately mask a high pitched snort. And Sarge couldn’t stop himself from grinning.

_Score._  



	26. Docnut & Sargegrey: Advice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Docnut & Sargegrey. Sarge has a date. Sarge needs advice. He might've gone to the wrong couple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from dwmaweapongirl16  
> May become a larger fic at some point : )

[due to some time restraint, I only got to the Doc + Donut advice section, but I really love this prompt and I hope you don’t mind me putting off the rest to maybe revisit at another time because this is awesome : ) ]  


A superior officer did _not_ ask for advice in two departments: Love and War.  


If there was ever a rule that Sarge had felt so instrumental to the very core of his being, it would have been that – that there was nothing more precious than maintaining that ideal.  


A superior office shouldn’t even have _need_ of such types of advice, and yet Sarge found himself blanking after mere hours of hearing Doctor Grey say “yes.”

They were going to have dinner together. And while it was never even in Sarge’s mind that she would say “no”, the old Red had made it a point to not worry about what to do with said Date until he was certain it was something to even _be_ worried about.  


Confirmation of said date made it something to be worried about.  


So worried, in fact, that Sarge felt willing to go back on one of his sacred rules.

That was how he found himself outside of the rec room during Yoga time, as there was absolutely no way anyone on Red Team would have dared go near there without being fully prepared for baby oil and incense between four and six.  


He glared grouchily as Donut unfolded from whatever backbreaking stance he had been in and pulled an exaggerated wave to greet the colonel. His smile could not have been wider or sweatier.  


“Oh, _hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii,_ Sarge! I didn’t have any idea you’d be coming by today!” Donut preened. He looked to the mat where Doc was still somewhat meditating in a more subdued form. “If I’d known that we would have gotten out the other mat.”

Doc opened an eye, staring suspiciously at Donut. “Wait, we have another mat? Why do we always share?”

“I think proximity is keen for a good, working relationship!” Donut grinned back at his partner. “Don’t you think so, Sarge?”

Closing his eyes, Sarge released a low groan. He had somewhat hoped that Doc wouldn’t have been there. But Doc was almost a non-presence on most days so there was a chance it wouldn’t have mattered all that much.  


“Hello, Donut,” Sarge greeted, electing to ignore anything in relation to Doc and Donut’s relationship outside of the very thing Sarge had came for.  


Donut was giving him a good look over, head swaying to the side as his brows raised toward his hairline. “I don’t see how maneuverable you’re going to be in a suit, Sarge. That said, you look _very_ handsome. This is Donut approved attire. Given you _could_ use some color beyond a red tie…”

“I’m not here for a change of wardrobe, Donut,” Sarge announced, subconsciously straightening his tie all the same. “I’m here… Well. You see. I’m here for…” The man took pause, scowled a bit at his own fumbling hands.

A superior officer should never ask his men about _Love_ and _War!_

“Is it maybe your hair?” Doc asked curiously. “I mean, the crew cut’s not been justified for about a decade since _I’ve_ known you. I could see how you would want it gone.”

Sarge bristled. “What!? How dare you – this is military standard! And as such, there has never been any hair to have even come _close_ to being such an honor. Think of all the brilliant military minds to have rested just beneath this very haircut!”

Doc stroked his chin in thought, then looked back at Sarge. “General Washington didn’t.”

“That was a wig,” Sarge dismissed immediately, waving his hand. “Everyone knows that beneath that wig: a crew cut. Just the sort of style that America was founded upon.”

“Okay, so we’re not here for hair,” Donut agreed, looking between the two of them before settling his gaze back on Sarge. “But what _are_ we here for, Sarge?”

“I… Well. You see, I was…” Sarge glared at his shoes, feeling heat spread across his ears. “I… I am spending a pleasurable evening dining with an exceptional li’l lady and as such I find myself… wondering whether or not I’m… _sweet_ enough to make it work.”

Immediately, Sarge learned the sound of two grown men cooing. And decided he hated it and would kill it with fire.

“Aw, Sarge, that’s absolutely adorable! I kind of wish I had that on camera,” Donut called out excitedly.  


“And it’s also a pretty good call,” Doc spoke up. “Since you’re definitely not someone I would categorize in the ‘sweet’ category by nature.”

“Why you– I could kill a man for making such a statement!” Sarge snapped.

“My point exactly!”

“I think what Doc’s _really_ trying to say here, Sarge, is that the gesture alone has quite a bit of sweetness attached to it,” Donut spoke up, again asserting himself between the two. “However, we’re not entirely convinced someone who agreed to a date with you would be expecting supersaturation of it anyway.” Donut smiled widely. “So you’ll probably be sweetest when you’re just yourself to her!”

Doc flinched at that advice. “Or… y’know… the opposite of yourself. The opposite might be even better.”

Sarge sputtered. “With counteractive advice it’s almost like I didn’t get any help from you two at all!”

“Love’s weird that way,” Donut nodded.  



	27. Grif & Donut: Nice to See You Smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grif & Donut. It's not a common sight

It was definitely odd to see Grif without Simmons outside of the base. And, just a little bit, Donut couldn’t help but think that it was odd that this was odd to him because, well, he never really was struck by how strange it was when it was Simmons without Grif. 

This way, though… Well, it just didn’t seem normal.

A little curious, Donut approached, eyebrows raised cautiously as he did so. 

Grif was sitting back against the cliff side which protected the newly inhabited Chorus city they took root in. He seemed more distant than Donut had ever seen him, his gaze out over the city didn’t seem angry or bitter. He was simply…

Well, he was just calmly taking it in. Looking past the dingy home that bore witness to their adopted home’s last straggling population.

Donut somewhat felt like he was intruding, and yet at the same time he was _so_ curious about Grif’s appearance, he found himself stepping up alongside his longtime teammate again.

“Hey!” Donut called out, getting Grif’s attention at last.  


Grif blinked then rolled his eyes with a groan. “Oh, great. What does Sarge want? Wait, don’t tell me, I have the answer already. Ahem. _No.”_

“Sarge wasn’t asking about you,” Donut assured the orange soldier with a wave of his hand. “Don’t worry about that! I wasn’t even looking for you, actually. I was just checking out the perimeter.”  


“What? Why?”  


“I need to get a good idea of where a nice garden could be set up,” Donut explained with a shrug. “It was going to just be a personal garden for me, but I guess all the talk I gave about it gave Kimball the idea that I should show some of the troops how to start real crops. Help with the food shortage.” He smiled brightly. “Wanna help?”  


“Are you going to grow candy corn?” Grif asked almost idly.  


“I don’t think I _can._ It sounded like Kimball wanted food of substance.”  


“Well, then my answer’s no,” Grif responded. He crossed his arms. Even in his snark, Grif was wearing an uncharacteristic smile on his face. It was fairly odd and went against everything Donut thought he knew about Grif.  


“You seem up in spirits today,” Donut announced, stepping up to Grif and poking his side with an elbow. “What’s got you in this good mood?”  


“Definitely wasn’t being pestered by you,” Grif snapped. “What do you want, Donut?”  


“You’re happy. I just wanted to know why,” Donut said with a shrug.   


Grif, always the skeptic, stared at him for a few long minutes, then he looked back to the horizon. As hard as he tried to keep a straight face, a smile curled on his lips all the same. 

“When the UNSC came with their last shipment… they also had some messages to pass along from contacts outside of the communication block,” he said almost fondly. “I… I got a recording from my sister.”  


Donut blinked in astonishment. “No kidding? Wow! Last I heard she had died! That’s great. She’s fun.”

“Yeah, she is,” Grif muttered before rubbing the back of his hand against his eyes, sniffing. “I… I hadn’t heard her voice in _eight years_  and… I just needed to get away a bit. Soak it in.”  


Smiling, Donut stepped up by Grif. “That’s awesome news, buddy. I’ll let you get back to that–”

“I don’t mind spending some time with you,” Grif sighed. “You can stay. Just… don’t do anything creepy or weird.”  


“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Donut replied, plopping down on the ground by Grif’s feet.   



	28. Grif Siblings: For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grif Siblings. Grif doesn't think he has a choice when it comes to enlisting

The letter had stains on it exactly where Dexter held his thumbs every time he bothered to pull it out. Which was a lot, especially after getting fired again.  


The tool he had for a boss probably took some sick pleasure out of firing him knowing it was only a few weeks before Dex was going to be forcibly deployed anyway. The asshole. Really, all he had done was make Dexter Grif’s choices a little easier for him: he didn’t _have_ a choice anymore.

Summer and Winter weren’t really accurate descriptions of the seasons in Honolulu, a better description was that he was sitting on the beach during the one sunny day in the rainy season.

When he looked out, he couldn’t help but take in with a guilty breath just how beautiful everything there was. The paper wrinkled with the shaking of his hands.

Kaikaina was coming in from the water, unmatching swimwear and bright sunkissed smile, her hand painted board under her arm. Just because she was soaked and dripping, she made a point to duck in under the umbrella and hug him and kiss his cheek sloppily.  


She was trying to annoy him. It was making him cry.

“Yeesh, you going to stick under here all day?” she grouched, not yet noticing the way he was trembling beside her. Kai plopped down on the towel behind Dex, resting her back against his. She let her slopping wet hair run down his neck. “One of the _only_ days that you let me skip school and you’re being such a bum, I swear.”

He took a deep breath, choking back on his tears, swallowing them down as he tried to think his way through what to say next. How to tell her what decisions he was making for the rest of her life.  


“Bro?” she asked curiously.

Dexter exhaled, ignoring how Kai’s hands curled around his shoulders and she leaned in to look at his face. Her face was drawn up in concern. “Dex?”

“Hey, uh… Sis?” he began, looking at her weakly. “Did… did you know the circus is on the off season in the bungalows?” he asked.  


“Oh, man, that’s just on the other side of the island,” she said, looking off toward town. “We could probably go there this weekend! See mom again! You didn’t tell me she called, Dex!” she growled, punching his shoulder.  


He rolled with it, unable to muster strength to pull the miserable look off his face. He was _so_ tired for someone who was only just seventeen.

Kaikaina’s face faltered again. She turned her head to the side. “Dex?”

“I was actually thinking… let’s go visit her tomorrow,” Grif explained, looking down to his hands. “You’ve not seen her since June, right? Well, it’s important for a girl to be with her mom, so I think it’s high time we did that. We’ll stop at that spot on Mauna Kea, make some snowmen like we used to. Make a real good trip out of it.”

When he looked up, he realized his baby sister had backed off from him, eyes wide and more than a little frightened. “Bro… you’re scaring me…”

“Kai, listen to me,” he said, getting to his knees and leaning toward her.  


“No! You told me we couldn’t stay with Mom and the circus anymore, Dex! Why do you want to go back? What’s going on?” Kaikaina looked so terrified it made Grif almost feel sick.

He backed off, put his hands solidly on his lap and tried to blink away the blurriness. “Kai, I just… I don’t think I have any choice,” he said. “I think I’ve got to go.”

“Go? Go where?” Kai pressed before her eyes drifted down to the paper on Dexter’s lap. He watched as her face began to lose color. “But… but _everyone_ dies in the war… I don’t know anyone who’s come back.”

“You’re fifteen. You don’t know that many people,” he tried to reason back only to receive a piercing glare from his sister. “Kai, listen–”

“Why? Why don’t you have a choice?” she demanded.

“Because!” he growled. “I’m a piece of shit and I can’t keep a job to take care of you!”

When he gathered his senses, he looked to his sister to see her face crumbling, falling with tears as she began to curl in on herself. She was _sobbing_ , which was making _him_ begin to cry even more.  


“No, no, Sis, please–”

“I don’t want you to go!” she wailed. “Dex, please! I’ll get a job! I’ll help – Big Bro, no!”  


“Kai, please,” but he couldn’t maintain it any longer. He covered his eyes with his hand and tried so hard to not just melt into the sand right then and there, never leave his home

His sister’s sobbing were loud, body shaking – enough so that Grif was able to reach over to her without looking and wrap his hand around hers. He held tight, so tight that he could almost trick himself into believing they’d never let go.  



	29. Kai & Simmons: Chocolate Cake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kai & Simmons. Baking Grif a birthday cake turns into quite the revealing conversation.

[NSFW warning for the last lines XD Sorry, guys, I have to keep Kai true to form somehow]  


The frazzled look on Simmons powder smeared face said more than enough – or would have if Kai had bothered to pay attention to it.  


Instead, she was whipping and stirring and setting timers and examining eggs, all to the grunting displeasure of her supposed cooking partner.

If nothing else he looked adorable in the matching aprons she forced them to wear.

“How sure are you that chocolate cake is his favorite?” Simmons asked for what was, no joke, about the hundredth time since Sister had even bothered to bring up that they should do something special for her Big Bro’s birthday.

“Oh my _gawwwwwd!”_ she groaned, throwing up her hands and slinging some cake batter across Simmons’ face in the process. “How many times do you need to ask me that, dude? Do you honestly take your own word over mine? _You didn’t know when my brother’s birthday was!!!”_

“He’s a very private person,” Simmons snapped back, cheeks growing red as he continued to get more flustered.  


“Yeah right. I think all you guys in this stupid canyon are really just a bunch of assholes who don’t think about this important shit,” she snapped off at him, pulling her mixing bowl up against her chest and beginning to whisk it again. “And Big Bro _loves_ chocolate on chocolate cake.”

“It just seems so… I don’t know, _normal_ for Grif,” Simmons sighed, lazily working on the icing again. “I would expect his favorite cake to be something like… I don’t know. Gummy Bear surprise. Or mudpies.”

Smiling at the batter as she began to poor it in the pan, Sister shrugged, a smile wide across her face. “Maybe it would be. But when we were little and it was just me and my bro growing up? He used to make me the _best_ desserts every year on my birthday. Always something different and _awesome._ But… I never really got interested in cooking and stuff. I just one year on his birthday went to the store by myself, got one of those cake mix boxes, and used its instructions to make a cake.” She looked up to see Simmons’ attention was fully on her. “I didn’t know that icing came separate.”

“Oh, no!” Simmons laughed. 

“Yeah,” she snorted. “I didn’t have any more money to go to the store and get icing, and when my bro came home and saw me crying about it, he ate the _whole cake_ dry. And then drank all our milk.” She smiled fondly at the cake pan before turning around and putting it in the oven. “That’s when I decided to learn how to make chocolate cake from scratch. It’s, like, my _one_ recipe. But Big Bro eats it up, says he loves it. So if you gotta know how to bake something, might as well be something he loves.”

Simmons put down the icing bowl, looking misty eyed after the story.  


“That was beautiful,” he sniffed.

“Yeah,” she sighed, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. “I’m glad he likes it. I don’t like sweets the way he does. I’m more of a salty person. Maybe that’s why I swallow.”

Almost immediately, Simmons’ face dropped.  


“Wait, what?”  



	30. Donut & Washington: Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donut & Wash. Donut's got his eye on Locus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from ephemeraltea

Keeping an eye on Locus almost immediately became Donut’s foremost concern.  


They hadn’t been with the F.A.C. long enough for him to really feel he had a handle on the people or situation, and he fully embraced that their friends like Doctor Grey were solid, good people to have in company, but Doyle’s words were still ringing in Donut’s ears.

Locus was out of control. Just like this war had long since gotten out of control. 

It was something that the private tried very hard to keep in mind as he followed everything Locus did on the base, as he intervened each time the mercenary tried very hard to corner Wash and have some existential discussion about merits and war.  


He fully understood why his friends and the various soldiers of the Federal Army were struck dumb around Locus – the man was a commanding presence – but Donut could genuinely look past it all with his own objective – keeping the dude as far away from his friends as possible.

Which was why it was a bit surprising when Wash pulled him over a few weeks into their newest F.A.C. station.  


“What are you doing?” the Freelancer demanded.

“I’m… stalking?” Donut answered a bit confusedly.

“That’s obvious,” Wash countered. “ _Why_ are you stalking the mercenary who has threatened to kill us?”

Donut  blinked a bit in confusion on that one. “I’ve got to keep an eye out for you, Wash! The guy totally has his sights concentrated on you.”

“That’s good,” Wash responded, folding his arms. “That’s where I’ve wanted them.”

“Wait, what?”  


“The more Locus is concentrating his energy on _me_ , the less focus he has on any of you,” he explained readily, scowling a bit at the thought. “I don’t need any of you watching my back.”

“Uh, _yeah_ you do,” Donut responded, waving a bit around. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Wash, but you’re the only Blue around. We’ve _got_ to watch your back. At least until we save everybody else stuck with the rebels.”

Wash stared at him for a bit, frown setting in almost too easily on his features. “What do you guys care? I can handle this all myself.”

“Yeesh, years of not fighting and you have to ask that? We just care,” Donut shrugged. “Even Sarge doesn’t hate you guys. And I’m pretty sure I almost got kicked off Red Team when he found out I had blue eyes back in the good ol’ days!” Putting on a more genuine smile, Donut reached forward, putting a firm hand on Wash’s shoulder. “We’re all pretty silly with the infighting and _Reds_ and _Blues_ , but, Wash, I don’t think we’ve shown any more clearly than we have in just the last few years how much we trust each other.”

Donut watched as Wash flinched back at those words of comfort, going so far as to take a step back himself and close his eyes. For just a moment, Donut watched the flash of a _very_ haunted look come across the Freelancer.

Concerned, Donut tried to step forward again. “Uh. Wash?”

“Don’t trust me,” Wash said simply, opening his eyes and looking almost sorrowfully at Donut. “I haven’t earned it yet.”  



	31. Grif & Sarge: Before Blood Gulch...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grif & Sarge. Grif might never get used to this canyon, but he might have a good handle on what to do with Sarge

The first week in Blood Gulch was easily the hardest.  


Fresh out of basic, Grif still had the _semblance_ of being a soldier. He wasn’t sure how they saw through his test scores – completely non-engaging and answering nothing on the exam should have forfeited him from _any_ assignments – but they had, and he couldn’t help but feel he had been punished for it as a result.  


The canyon was hotter than the seventh ring of Hell, and the armors assigned to them were cumbersome and restricting. With all the amazing technology at his literal fingertips, Grif couldn’t even be bothered to figure out how to properly use his radio.  


There was a strange sort of comfort, if not complete annoyance, that the kissass from basic had somehow _also_ been assigned to Blood Gulch Outpost Number-One. But they were _all_ that was there beside the completely silent and incredibly judgmental Lopez who Grif had, in a whole week, never seen outside of his armor once.  


He rose in the morning, groggy and slow, before heading to the bathroom. He was halfway through his usual routine and pausing to rub at his only just growing back hair when it occurred to him that Simmons was nowhere to be found in their shared bunk room.  


It was also in that moment that Grif recalled their C.O. telling them to be up at dawn and ready to run some drills around the canyon.  


“The fuck didn’t wake me up!” Grif gasped, rushing to his locker and almost tripping over himself to get his armor on in double time.  


By the time he stumbled out, he could see Simmons and Lopez on the other side of Red Territory, carrying some kind of equipment with what looked like a weather instrument on it.  


A little breathlessly, Grif looked around a little more only to find that Sarge was just ten feet off from him – arms crossed as he watched the other Reds in the distance.  


For a moment, Grif considered backtracking into the base and just hiding out until about lunch when he noticed a subtle change in Sarge’s head’s position.  


“Private Grif!” the old man barked out. “You were deliberately disobeying my command! Where _were_ you at sunrise?”

Grif blinked a few times, the months of training and drilling in his mind begging him to respond in a respectful manner and prepare to take his lumps for it, but the natural Grif instincts desperately needed to be contrary.  


He went with honesty. “Uh. In the bed, Sir,” he responded carefully, stepping up to where his C.O. was.  


“What? You have a lazy bone you need to take care of, son?” Sarge snapped.  


“Probably more than just one,” Grif continued honestly.

“Private Grif, with that attitude and your tardy behavior, I have absolutely _no choice_ but to have Lopez and Simmons take care of repositioning all of my equipment in the canyon and to levy _you_ with supervision duty!”

For a moment, Grif was still waiting for proper orders on how he was to be punished. When they didn’t come, he found himself blinking in confusion. He looked out to the heated canyon where Simmons and Lopez were working, then back to Sarge.

“Uh… you mean you want me to stand here… in the shade… and watch? And not give Simmons or Lopez a break?”

Sarge looked down at Grif, arms still crossed over his broad chest. “But of course!” he said back. “Why would I put a lazy bum out in the middle of the canyon to mess with equipment he wasn’t instructed on how to properly fix, and disrupt the ongoing activity in order to do so? That just doesn’t make sense!”

“Well, when you put it that way,” Grif trailed off, looking back out just as Simmons half collapsed in the heat over one of the weather machines. “Yeah, you’re right, Sarge. I’ll stand here. And I think I’m getting used to this place at last.”  



	32. Sarge & Lopez & Kai: Make It Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarge & Lopez & Kai. There's only three of them in the canyon, and a lot of nonsense.

In six months, Blood Gulch had become shockingly less appealing.

A part of Sarge didn’t want to dwell on why that was – he had certainly told himself enough times that Lopez was more than enough to keep him company – but it was getting to that point where his joking suggestion to Lopez that some cardboard cut outs of his former subordinates would make good window dressings was seeming less and less like a joke every day.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, he hadn’t had the time to return that idea that morning as the Warthog had keeled over again, supposedly not a fan of the diesel upgrade.

Which was what had kept him busy until near noon when the _true_ pestering began.

“HEY!” the yellow armored Blue screamed, standing on the thick black line that Sarge had had Lopez paint across the canyon’s one hill. “GROSS OLD GUY! GIVE ME ALL YOUR BASE’S ICE!”

Sarge looked up from his work, brow beaded with sweat, and craned back to lock eyes with the distant Blue.  


Lopez, standing with his arms crossed, just released an aggravated sigh.  


“Excelente,” the robot seethed. “Ella está gritando de nuevo. A continuación, deberá gritar espalda. Entonces ella gritará. Odio este lugar.”  


“Not now, Lopez!” Sarge snapped before standing up. He cupped his hands around his mouth and roared back, “GET OUT OF HERE, BLUE! IF YOU WERE A MAN I’D TELL YOU TO GO OFF YOURSELF WITH YOUR STUPID TANK! SINCE YOU’RE NOT, I’LL TELL YOU TO GO HOME AND CRY TO YOUR DOLLS AND YOUR IMAGINARY TEA SETS!”

“UGH. I FUCKING HATE YOU!”

The robot grabbed at the sides of his heads and groaned. “¿Ves?“

“Lopez, shush! No one understands your Spanish mumbling!” Sarge ground out before looking back to Grif’s sister. It made it easy to ignore the deathly glare he was receiving from his own creation.  


“ALL I NEED IS ICE! I WANT TO MAKE A SNOWMAN! GAWWWWWWWD!”

Looking toward Sister, Lopez’s head tilted to the side. “Ella puede hacer eso también?“

“Not _now_ , Lopez,” Sarge huffed. He then stroked his jaw. “She can make snowmen like Grif? How odd.” He dropped down to his knees to grab up his tools, easily evading the swing of Lopez’s fist, before standing back up and walking toward the base. “I’m going to investigate this phenomenon, Lopez! Keep an eye on the Warthog and make sure that little harlot doesn’t cross into Red territory!!!”

The robot plopped down on the Warthog and sighed. “Lo que sea.”

Grabbing a few bags in each arm from the woefully under supplied kitchen of Outpost Number-One, Sarge marched his way across Red territory, suspiciously looking over the form of his former subordinate’s sister.

The girl lit up almost immediately. “Oh man!!! You actually brought some! Kick _ass!_ Now I can shave it–”

“Shave ice?” Sarge asked, baffled.

“Duh, how else would I make snow?” she snorted, grabbing the bags from his arms. “Big Bro showed me how to do it – he was, like, the _king_ of shaved ice back home. It was _awesome.”_

“You don’t say?” Sarge said, hands on his hips. “Tell me, Sister Grif, what else would your brother like to do.”

“Well, I don’t know why _you’d_ care, but I’ve got some stories!”  



	33. Sargegrey: Battlefronts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sargegrey. Sarge tells her repeatedly, he's *not* afraid of the battle

There were still pockets of resistance after Chorus was saved. People with nothing to lose – pirates, mercenaries, convicts. The impending arrival of the UNSC flagships and reinforcements meant nothing to people who were already on most wanted lists.  


The Reds and Blues had little else to do as they waited for rescue – they were used to fighting by that point, they felt a little more community with the people of the small planet than they cared to express, and most of them still needed a taste of revenge for everything the final battles had dared to take from them.  


Sarge fell more toward the first sentiment than the others. He took a certain amount of jubilation in battle – it made sense to him to fight and to keep fighting even when there didn’t seem to be much of a battle left to fight.  


It was in his blood. It was something that Doctor Grey liked to talk about in depth with him on their joint missions.  


“You wouldn’t understand, being a healer and all that,” Sarge shrugged as she continued to stare at him, a little more perplexed than most.  


“Most people find open battle – particularly on the front line – terrifying, Colonel,” she informed him. “I’m just surprised that you keep coming back to the most dangerous positions to put yourself in.”

“That’s because I don’t fear it, Doctor Grey, Medicine Woman,” he chuckled. “It’s glory to be shot, wounded, or killed. Many great soldiers have gone that way! I don’t see how I could be scared to join them.”

“I suppose if that’s how you feel,” she sighed, bringing a hand to her lip. “I really _would_ like to discuss this subject more with you when we get back, though, Colonel. I feel like it’s very important for you that we do so.”

He joked that he couldn’t refuse a request from a beautiful woman, tried his charm for everything it was, but found the continuation of their drive rather quiet. Reflective. He wasn’t sure what Doctor Grey was thinking of, but he most certainly had his full attention on just what he said – the battle, and all the many soldiers he knew had had honorable ends to their own fronts.  


There wasn’t a word he said to Doctor Grey that wasn’t true in his own mind. They came across the camp of a hoard of lawless former pirates, and he charged through the front without hesitation or fear. He didn’t even _think_ about having any fear about it.

At least, he didn’t until he had noticed that one of the supply vehicles in the back had gone up in smoke during the battle and seen soldiers rushing toward it.  


He checked his radio frequency for their shared com and, in a quiet and unreserved voice that was very much unlike the good doctor, he heard the simple plea, “Please come get me.”

And in that moment, as he raced toward the smoke and fire, Sarge felt fear in battle again.  



	34. Donut & Sarge: Father-Son Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donut & Sarge [background Docnut]. It's a nice wedding, Sarge just wants to get drunk all the same

Like anything else they ever did, the wedding is something of a calamity – a combination of errors and missteps an dangerous moments that somehow collide into something beautiful and decent for all involved.  


At some point there’s less horror and more laughter, and everything feels like they can keep up this momentum for days and days.  


Except they can’t because it’s not going to be too much longer before Doc and Donut are going to be heading out, and it’s going to be sad and draining to stay in the reception room when the bar tab’s closed and the buffet has been all but dismantled by their constant pickings.  


Sarge has a great scotch and an eye on everyone. If asked he’s more than willing to say it’s just the Blues – making sure they’re not up to any of their Blue trickery to ruin Donut’s special night – but it’s not the truth. He’s taking it all in together and feeling more than a little remorseful with each passing moment.  


Doc isn’t who Sarge would choose for one of his men. But it’s not like it was his business who Donut fell for anyway. He cares more than the perimeters for a superior officer should allow, and that’s a problem in and of itself.  


He’s been stewing on these thoughts for the whole night, knowing full well that the scotch and whisky aren’t going to cheer them up any.  


So he’s taken a bit by surprise when Donut slides in behind him, hooks an arm around Sarge’s elbow and starts pulling him off Sarge’s very comfortable stool.

“What’s the meaning of this, Donut?” Sarge asks, a little baffled. 

“This isn’t really a traditional wedding,” Donut says, as if it wasn’t a horrendously obvious observation. “But I just always wanted a father-son dance, Sarge! And I’ve already danced with Mom and Agatha. So we can’t put this off any longer.”

Sarge blinks, completely off guard.  


“Father-son dance?” Sarge repeats, sounding more than a little shell shocked.

Donut pauses, a worried line crossing his features. “Yeah. Um. That’s okay… right?”

His mouth and throat feel dry and his heart is racing. Sarge has never felt more proud or more humble simultaneously in all of his life. He swells with the information, grabbing Donut’s shoulder and spinning him around to face the dance floor.

“Of course it is!” he howled. “Now let’s beat Tucker and his alien boy at this father-son dance combo – show them how to really do it!”  



	35. Kimbalina & Sargegrey: Double Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimbalina & Sargegrey. Carolina can't believe their luck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from the-crimson-question

It was meant to be a quiet night. A nice dinner. Some champagne. A celebration.

There was more than enough evidence that they both needed it. Kimball had an entire planet to run, Carolina a very small and broken family to hyper focus herself on.

The suggestion was for them to take the night off, together, and enjoy themselves as if they were stable, under control people. And thus far it had been _wonderful._

New Armonia was still establishing itself, but nine months in there was certainly good grounds made. Soldiers were finding small ways to fit into normal life again – there were restaurants and bars, a few shops. The UNSC had assisted in establishing the new hospital under Doctor Grey (which, to some relief for Carolina, had kept the woman ludicrously busy) as well as a bank and docking bay for supply shipments.

They had made a night of casually inspecting all of it – no time restraints, no immediate need to document everything they observed, just casual. As casual as either woman could get.

And the restaurant, well, years upon years of scrounging for resources, eating cafeteria gruel, and simply going without led to the subsequent dinners to be one of the most delicious things either of them had ever tasted.

And they hadn’t even gotten past the dinner rolls.

“I’m almost ashamed for how hungry I am,” Kimball laughed, running a hand nervously through her hair. “I kept hearing how good this place was…”

“Same,” Carolina returned, breaking another roll and thinking to offer the larger half to her date. “I heard it from the Reds plenty of times, but I don’t exactly take their recommendations worth a grain of salt. It’s when Tucker said he liked it that I decided it might not be too terrible for us to try out ourselves.”

Kimball sighed. “Ah, yes. I’m sure Captain Grif _adores _it here. But he also adores it in the mess hall, so I’m sure I see your meaning.”

Carolina sipped on her wine for a bit then hummed, lowering the guess. “No, actually, it wasn’t Grif who told me about it first. It was actually Sarge.”

Pursing her lips, Kimball seemed to be truly in deep thought about that statement. “How odd. Why would the Colonel ever come here, I wonder…”

The thought had no sooner escaped her lips than they heard a brash roaring laughter followed by high keening giggles.

Immediately, both women looked back toward the entrance of the restaurant as a well dressed couple strolled right in, ushered to wait the waiting staff was calling their “usual reservations.”

Sarge and Doctor Grey looked positively rambunctious.

“Oh, no,” Carolina muttered as she saw Sarge’s sights zero in on their table. “Don’t you dare–”

“Actually, my penguin suited friend, I think we are going to trade up our seats tonight!” Sarge barked at the waiter. “Pull us up some chairs by that fine pair of gals over there!”

Doctor Grey had the widest grin on that either Kimball or Carolina had ever seen. She clapped excitedly. “Oh, a double date!”

Kimball wore a solid frown, but Carolina bothered enough to narrow her eyes. “Goddammit.”


	36. Caboose Siblings: Take a Grenade For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niner & Caboose Siblings. Niner can't believe what her brother will do for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from goodluckdetective

When all was said and done, Niner wasn’t sure what infuriated her more, that the ship was blasted to hell or that these Sim Trooper morons and their Freelancer buddies had just given a sigh of relief when the Caboose siblings emerged from the wreckage.  


Caboose was a little quick to take off his helmet – not a complete surprise since the visor seemed busted – which gave Niner full access to his big, content smile smacked right across his face. Like he had done something worthy of a treat rather than _just ducked under a missile launcher.  
_

Niner stared at him before grabbing his shoulders and yanking him down to her level. Michael’s eyes nearly spun around in his skull before settling sights on her.  


“What the hell was that!?” she demanded.

He gave her a curious look then squinted slightly. It was as if he was trying to figure out whether or not she was asking him a trick question.  


Finally, he answered, “An explosion.” He hesitated, thinking over the answer again, and then rubbed a little bashfully at his ears. “It _was_ an explosion, right?”

Niner gave him a serious look, wouldn’t let him drop his gaze, and then harshly bumped her forehead against his. He flinched at it, the way he did when they were kids, but didn’t pull away. The bridges of their noses nearly touched and Michael went cross eyed to keep eye contact.  


“You big lug,” Niner grunted, tightening her grip on his shoulders. “Don’t you ever do something so dangerous again – not for me, not for anyone.” He frowned a bit at the order, making Niner sigh. “Damn it, Mikey. That was so brave. That was… I can’t believe you’d just about get yourself killed for me like that. It was awful! Don’t do it again. I’m not going to lose you just because _I’m_ too stubborn to abandon a ship. You got that? I make my beds, you let me lie in them, kid.”

He reached back, rubbing at his neck. “Oh okay. Good. See. Here _I_ thought. You were mad at the ship thing. You like ships a lot. I’m glad you’re not mad about it exploding. That would’ve been bad. But since it was good, I did it.”

Niner shoved him back and glared at him. She threw her arms in the air, “Mad!? _I’m goddamn livid about my ship!_ Fucking _A_ , Michael, that was the first ship in my name since fucking Freelancer. Am I mad? Of course I’m goddamn mad! I’m so mad I could beat someone’s brains in over the ship! That was a fucking great ship!”

Taking a step back and holding up his hands, Michael J. Caboose blinked widely at her. “Oh… okay… Tucker did it.”  



	37. Sargegrey: Knocked Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SargeGrey. Doctor Grey has some hilarious news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Propmt from the always awesome goodluckdetective

The joy and the pain of Emily Grey was that, quite simply, she was a _very_ direct woman.  


Chorus’ progress in the years after the war at times felt slow on a grander scale, but in the progress they had made with her assisting the medical facilities, they had actually made great headway into keeping people _alive_ on their colony for once.  


Over a year after the Charon Industries ships had cleared from the skies and Doctor Grey had found that there was a subtle but definite shift in what her concentration was – from repairing and replacing limbs and wounds, to providing help for malnourishment and illness, and delivering new life to Chorus.  


She never did quite get over the fact that the first child to be born on Chorus after the war had been named Emily.  


It was such a sentimental, little thing, that had touched her in ways that weren’t expected.  


Which was why the results of her own test were probably not receiving the undo horror from her that they might have otherwise.  


There was probably a more private, more personal way to do these things, but that was a practice in wasting time for people who felt shame. And Doctor Emily Grey felt no shame. Ever.  


So while the bustling kitchen was full arguments and chatter the way it was _any_ morning in the home taken up by Red Team, Emily made a direct beeline toward the kitchen table where Sarge was sipping on a mug of coffee and reading over what looked like an instruction manual covered in diesel fluid.  


She slid into the chair across from him, slapping the medical scanner on the table and ignoring how the kitchen grew quiet around them.

Sarge looked at her from over his mug and then sipped again.  


“It’s green,” she informed him.  


His nose curled slightly. “Bah. Such a Bluish color.”

Behind them, the trio of Donut, Grif, and Simmons were scratching their heads and shrugging at each other unhelpfully. Which was fine as far as Doctor Grey was concerned.  


Lopez, however, stiffened. “Oh mierda.”

Doctor Grey bounced slightly in her chair, emphatic smile peeling across her face. “No, Colonel, don’t you see? Look at the shade of green – do you know what it means? What it represents?”

He eyed her for a moment before putting down his manual and coffee. He reached for the medical scanner and began to turn it back and forth, squinting as if it was supposed to give him something to work with if he turned it to just the right angle. He set it down.

“I think it’s on,” he reported.

“No, silly!” Grey laughed, taking it off the table and turning it so that the green glow would light up just in line with his vision. “This shade, it’s a response to _human chorionic gonadotropin.”_

“I heard gonads!” Donut announced.

“Not now, Donut, I’m trying to decipher the lovely doctor,” Sarge growled with a wave.  


She grinned at the lightish red soldier. “You’re not wrong, Private! You certainly heard that for a reason!”

He made a quick jab of his fist. “Awwwwwright!”

Grif rolled his eyes but beside him Simmons just looked pale and shell shocked. He whipped around, looking mortified at Sarge, then back at Grey, then back at Sarge. He looked ready to faint.  


“Why are you measuring doohickeys?” Sarge finally went for the bait.  


“It’s not doohickeys, they’re HCGs,” Grey corrected, reaching over to pat Sarge’s hand. “They’re a hormone you measure to determine pregnancy.”

There was a collective gasp from the peanut gallery.

“Oh, so you’re positive?” Sarge asked, almost entirely nonchalant.  


“I am,” she preened. “I’m expecting!”

“SARGE!” the boys screamed only for Grif to collapse on the floor with barely a look his way from the other two.  


“You dog,” Donut grinned.  


“Sarge!? Aren’t you even shocked by this?” Simmons demanded.

“No, why would I be?” he demanded, grabbing for his coffee again. “The doctor and I are as fertile as the banks of the Nile. I didn’t need the Whip Bam Bingo to tell me that!”  



	38. Caboose Siblings: Have to Tell Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niner Caboose. When she learns that one of their sisters didn't make in the war, Niner has to find a way to tell her brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt and original headcanon from goodluckdetective

A week straight of avoiding the brother whose side she had just before refused to leave, and Wash jumped her case.

“You can’t do that to him,” Wash had said with more anger and protective outrage than Niner had thought him capable of. “Take it from someone who learned the hard way – you can’t wall Caboose out and make him deal on his own. Whatever it is you’re going through, he deserves not just to know, but to know it’s not _his_ fault.”

If she had had the energy after a week straight of taking out her frustrations and grief on herself, she would have popped him in the jaw right there.  


But she didn’t. So instead she was taking his advice and standing before Michael.  


Niner stared at him. She wasn’t sure what was worse – the fact that she didn’t know if Caboose would understand or even remember… or if she was beginning to wonder if that would have been easier.

Her brother’s happiness at her crash landing and return to him on Chorus had been as strong as it was fleeting. It didn’t take too many conversations with his team to learn why – that he lost someone he considered to be his best friend.

It was part of why she had held out so long on trying to have this conversation with him. 

He noticed her and grew a large, content smile, though it slowly dipped, uncertain. _That_ hurt, but she deserved that for avoiding him for so long.  


“Hey,” she said with a small wave.

“Hello,” he replied back, fingers tapping together nervously.  


“Can I sit here?” Niner asked reluctantly.

“Can you sit… OF COURSE YOU CAN!” he yelled, leaping to his feet and dusting off the bench.

“I want to sit _with_ you,” she clarified as she walked over and swung her legs over the bench.  


“Oh, good,” he sighed with relief, plopping down next to her. Almost immediately, he began rubbing at his hair, looking very concerned with the table before them. It was his workbench – wires and gadgets everywhere, Freckles – the gun version – protectively leaned up against the wall. His big brown eyes looked at her nervously. “Are you mad at me?”

“No,” Niner said somberly, “I’m sorry you thought I was.”

He looked down again, frown growing on his face. Caboose looked _so_ concerned with trying to figure out the mystery of her behavior. It would have been comical if it wasn’t such a punch to her gut.  


“Why don’t we talk like friends anymore?” he asked, frown still set.  


“We _are_ still friends,” she clarified, turning to face him directly. “Don’t you worry about that part, okay? Brothers and sisters? We’re friends for life… for…”  


She closed her eyes, feeling the swelling of tears. She couldn’t do this. She set her head down on the table and took a shaky breath. God. Her sister. She hadn’t talked to her sister even longer than she hadn’t talked to her brother – the person who had died on Chorus probably wasn’t even the same one that she had once known, had once babysat and counted the stars with.  


“Please don’t be sad,” Caboose whispered, wrapping his arms around her.  


Niner made an ugly sob, leaning into her brother’s chest. She swallowed dryly, patting his arm. “S-sometimes, Mikey… sometimes it’s right to be sad.”

“Okay,” he said back.

She looked up to him. “Do you remember the moon? And our sisters?”

“I love the moon,” he said, looking off to the distance, eyes shining. “I love my sisters, too.”

“Yeah…” she sniffed. “You know… when we go home… things won’t be the same. Not everyone’s still on the moon.”

“Like us.”

“Like us,” she agreed. “But… we’re going to go back. Not… not everyone’s going back to the moon, Mikey. One of our sisters. She can’t. She can’t go back anymore.”

He grew quiet at that, frown tugging at the corners of his mouth. He looked at Niner seriously. “Can we go see her?”

“No,” Niner said softly. “No. She’s gone. We won’t see her for a long time.”

Niner searched his features, tried to see if Caboose was grasping the meaning behind her words, but it was unclear. He looked away, released her from the hug.  


“I don’t like my friends going where I can’t,” he said, and then nothing more.  


As if to make sure they were finished with the subject, he began to pick up his tools again and go to work. Niner opened her mouth, but she couldn’t think of anything to say.  


Instead she just laid her head against her brother’s shoulder and watched.  



	39. Grimmons: Love Poems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimmons. Donut comes across some unconventional poetry and shares with Simmons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from goodluckdetective
> 
> And yeah. Someday I'll figure out why I love inserting hilariously giggly Donut into all of these prompt fills. Someday.

Simmons held his head against the door. If he waited long enough, he wondered if the perspiration from the door would be enough to at least wash his hair. Since Donut didn’t seem to be leaving the bathroom any time soon.

He groaned and slammed his fist against the door again. 

“DONUT!”

There was a roll of high pitched giggles from the other side of the door that made Simmons throw his head back and shake from head to toe. “Nevermind! I don’t want to know what it’s going to look like when you’re done!”

Just as he gripped the towel at his hips and began to turn heel, Simmons heard the heavy door to the bathroom open, felt a sweaty hand grab his shoulder from behind, and then was yanked backwards into the brightest, most lilac fragranced military bathroom Simmons had ever seen. Or smelled. 

Simmons stared at Donut in abject horror as the younger private just grinned ear to ear. 

“Ah! I hate when you smile like that – stop it! It’s creepy! Also. What did you do in here? It’s like you exploded a bag of potpourri. If Sarge finds out what you did in here he’ll be _very_ aggravated and tell you to clean it up,” Simmons listed off on his fingers. He felt like he had this conversation every other day. Though at least he was usually not just in a towel.

“That’s not true,” Donut pouted, putting his hands on what Simmons just realized were bare hips. “He’d tell _you_ to clean it up, because I’d point out that _this_ is the cleanest we’ve ever seen this bathroom!”

In horror, Simmons was covering his eyes. “Oh my god. How do you even have a full body tan?”

“It’s amazing what you can do when you care enough about Vitamin D deficiencies, Simmons!”

“I can’t believe I’m stuck in the bathroom with a naked Donut. _Again.”_ Simmons blinked behind his fingers a few times, then grew a tight frown. “Wait, why did you pull me in here? Was it _just_ to show off your tan? Can I leave now?”

“No!!! Though I’m very grateful you noticed the tan,” Donut preened. “I want you to read this _awwwwesome_ poetry collection I found in the trashcan!”

“Why were you going through papers in the trashcan?”

“That’s really not the important part of this story, Simmons,” Donut scolded. “The important part is that these retro poems are all about you!!!”

Simmons dropped his hand and glared at Donut. “Why were you reading poetry about me in the shower?”

“Oh, I finished the shower ages ago. I like to keep the steam running to open my pores. You can’t be too careful when it comes to skin care.”

“That is _so_ wasteful,” Simmons groaned before arching himself to look around Donut and examine the rest of the bathroom. “About these poems–”

“I put them in plastic sleeves to preserve their innocent beauty!” Donut cooed, pulling the sleeves out of seemingly nowhere to shove in Simmons’ face. “Look at how awesome these are! I have a running bet with myself that a fourth grader wrote them.”

Simmons stared at the first one, frown setting further and further on his face. 

_Saved me literally with his body_  
Irritating fuck  
Momma’s boy  
M.(b.)i.l.f.  
~~Organ donor~~ (oops can’t anymore)  
Nerd  
Sex panther

He glared at Donut. “Are you playing a joke on me?”

Donut blinked in surprise. “What’s funny about love, Simmons? What are you? A communist?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, forget it,” Simmons groaned, flipping the page over to examine the back. His face immediately went red. “Why are there so many penises drawn on the back of this?”

“Oh, sorry, that’s mine. I doodle during Sarge’s meetings.”

Simmons glared at him. “I _knew_ you weren’t taking notes. I _knew_ it and Sarge wouldn’t believe me.” He looked down to the next page and felt his face flush again. “ _I knew from the moment I saw his fucking face, that this asshole was actually pretty ace, so while I hate the goddamn canyon, at least I’m with my number one companion.”_

“That one rhymes!” Donut explained rather uselessly. “Most of them don’t. I think they’re free verse.” He sniffed a little arrogantly. “Personally, I only serenade my admirers with sonnets.”

Blinking repeatedly, Simmons slowly lowered to the floor, pouring over the terrible, awful, wonderful poetry. “ _To my favorite cyborg: you’re a fucking nerd. I’d hate your guts, but now they’re mine. So I guess I have to love that you’re… inside of me???”_

Donut leaned in, hands on his knees, and read over Simmons’ shoulder with him. “Yeah. I think they’re pretty metaphorical. Who do you think’s writing them?”

Simmons turned enough to glare at Donut again. “Are you being serious!? Who do I think wrote them? _Really?_ It’s practically signed!”

They both stopped and turned to face the door as it opened. Grif stood at the door, looking at them both rather disturbed. “I’m _not_ taking a shower in here while it smells like this,” Grif said firmly. “If Sarge wants me clean he can get out the waterhose. Later, losers.”


	40. Tuckington: Better Than Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Tuckington: Wash hears people dissing Tucker because "Wash could do better" Wash flips

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from goodluckdetective
> 
> [not quite Tuckington, Iz, sorry! I’ll make it up to you with something I’m sure is ridiculous and full of sass. Also I apologize for how crap this is, I’m getting back in the groove after midterms @_@ Post-Season 13 finale, character death tw]

Carolina had already left his side by the time the soldier was holding out the dulled hilt of the alien sword. No one had activated it, just as Wash had painfully yelled at them not to in between catching his breath from the floor. It wasn’t theirs to activate, to imprint on. That belonged to Tucker’s son. 

For some reason Kimball knew all too well how to handle him and Carolina. Carolina she had taken in arm and pulled away, let her rest against the wall and get to using her own feet to support her weight again. She knew to let Carolina run from the massacre. 

Wash, Kimball took to standing beside. Once he breathed again, once he stood stock still and watched, agonized as they cleared the room, as they checked on every body. 

He looked over their examination and removal the way he failed to look over them in life. And if his eyes stung from lacking more tears to give, it didn’t make a difference. 

His family was–

Washington felt something twist as the soldier continued to hold the hilt toward him, barely processed how the soldier flustered in the near minute of no response and looked to Kimball. 

She, in turn, put a firm hand on his shoulder. “Agent Washington…”

He stared at her before reaching forward, taking the hilt and feeling an immeasurable weight grow on him. The wind knocked out of his lungs again, he looked to the ground, stumbled back almost dizzily. 

His family was _dead.  
_

“Wash,” Kimball continued, stepping up next to him and taking his elbow, leading him toward the bullet riddled doors. When Wash’s feet crossed too many times and drug, Kimball was quick to readjust her grip and begin lowering him to the floor. “Wash. Washington? I’m sorry. We’re all… we’re…”

There was a sickening, ill feeling across his body and Wash just curled slightly over the hilt of Tucker’s sword. He didn’t want people’s apologies, he didn’t want Kimball’s sincerity. They couldn’t give him what he wanted. Just like he couldn’t give the Reds and Blues what they deserved after everything they had done for all of them.  

“I’m going to find Carolina,” she said, voice sounding increasingly worried. It almost made Wash wonder what she could possibly be seeing in him that had her – the tough New Republic general – on edge. And then she took off. 

Not sure what to do with himself, Wash rested his head on his knees and screwed his eyes as tightly shut as he could, cradling the sword hilt against his chest. He teeth gnashed uncomfortably as he could still hear the zippers of the bags being opened and closed just inside of the room. 

“I can’t believe they didn’t make it,” a soldier muttered, shock still apparent in his voice. “They were… they were war heroes.”

“Did you see how many people they took out? I mean… it was impossible,” another responded. “Still. Gave it a hell of a run.”

“I guess they did,” the first responded, a bit of a wilt to his voice. “Still, makes you think. If those Freelancers – hell just Agent Washington – coulda done better. Maybe held out ‘til we got here.”

Wash _felt_ his eyes snap open, his heart begin to race. The words echoed inside of his helmet and his muscles tensed at every joint. Before he even realized his dizziness was well passed, he was on his feet and was back in that godforsaken room lined with ominous black bags.

The soldiers had looked, making the mistake of saying, “Agent Washington?” and giving Wash that recognizable voice to hone in on.

It could have been worse for the soldier, Wash certainly _felt_ like doing worse, but he managed to stop just as he rammed the soldier into the nearest wall, picking the kid off the floor and pressing his forearm right against the kid’s clavicle. If not for the armor between them, Wash knew those bones could have cracked with the slam. 

“They were the _best_ of us,” Wash seethed. “Do you understand? Every one of them was a better man than I could dream of being. They were…”

He let out a shaky breath, dropping the soldier. He didn’t have to look around to know that Kimball and Carolina were watching from the door. Body still quivering even as the soldier scrambled off the floor, Wash reached for his head and gritted his teeth. 

“I need to leave,” he whispered. 

That time, Kimball took one elbow and Carolina took the other. 


	41. Ninerlina: These Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Niner and Carolina talk being older sisters, maybe make out, i don't know man, live your truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from goodluckdetective  
> Niner Caboose from goodluckdetective

Neither of them were really cuddlers. In some ways, Carolina respected that. It was relieving to not have to worry about a partner being discomforted as she drew away from touch and, just maybe, kicked them out of the bed for more leg room for herself.  


In other ways, Carolina grew concerned that, just maybe, it meant that they were missing some draw. She wasn’t entirely sure how to explain it to Niner.  


At the very least, Niner didn’t seem to share her concerns. Instead, the other woman laid comfortably on her back, eyes toward the skies, hands crossed against her stomach.  


There was a snarky twist on Niner’s lips as she looked out above. It was the kind of detail that Carolina kept finding herself drawn to.  


“You know,” Niner said fondly, “I used to take Mikey out at night, tell him the name of every star I remembered.” There was a depth in her eyes, a certain mistiness, as she leaned her head back and shook it slightly. “Those were his favorite times, I think.” Her eyes slid closed. “ _Thought._ I asked him if he remembered any of them recently… he didn’t even remember what we were talking about.”

Carolina never drew her eyes away from Niner, instead propping her head up to see every angle of her face.  


“Epsilon,” she said softly.

Niner at last opened her eyes, turned them toward Carolina expectantly. Carolina just ran a hand through her hair and sighed.  


There was still a burning in her chest every time she mentioned the AI, but she had to. She had to let Niner know, she wasn’t alone.  


“When it was just the two of us for so long, he used to watch over me. Project from the suit and sit over my shoulder at night, make sure I was safe… never left me alone…” she closed her eyes, breathed. “At first it didn’t seem like such a big deal but… the longer we went, the lonelier I saw him be… the more I felt so guilty about him having to stand over me all night. So I stopped sleeping as well, stayed up longer. It hurt my performance on missions, but… it was better than the guilt. I thought so, anyway.”  


She opened her eyes, saw Niner’s full attention was on her. 

“You know how he started to help me sleep again?” Carolina questioned.  


Niner shook her head.  


“He used to tell me about the stars we could see from Chorus,” Carolina said, looking up. “And when that got too repetitive, well, he told me about every star you could see from the moon. Earth’s moon. And I remember, one time, I finally asked why he knew so damn much about the stars from the moon.” She looked to Niner. “He said to me, ‘Caboose told me stories every day and every night when I was in the Epsilon Unit. He told me everything he knew, everything important. That’s why I know about the stars from the moon.’“

For a long moment, it seemed like Niner wasn’t going to react. Finally, though, she leaned up, rolled herself closer to Carolina, and pressed her lips against Carolina’s.  


Carolina fell back into it, letting Niner kiss breathily against her and curl her hands around the well of Carolina’s back  


And when Niner stopped, curled into Carolina’s side, and buried her face against the Freelancer, Carolina took the lead and wrapped herself around the pilot.  


“Thank you for that,” Niner whispered.  



	42. Caboose Siblings: Haircut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: May I have some more Caboose Siblings? I absolutely love them.

It wasn’t really that Wash cared about keeping his soldiers under regulation appearance (he did, just a little bit, but he tried desperately to bury that part of his thought process), it was just that there had already been three times that week that he had to rush over to Caboose’s room and help the Captain escape from his long locks being trapped by his helmet. 

The way Niner was staring at him, he might as well have approached her brother with a stick of dynamite.

“You’re getting nowhere near him with that!” she announced. 

He looked down at the trimmer and then back at her. “You… _do_ know this is for hair, right?”

“Do I look like an idiot? Of course I know it’s for hair! You’re not going to trim Michael like a goddamn poodle!” she snarled.

At hearing his first name, Caboose reacted as he always did, with a long sweeping twirl and large, doe-like eyes looking for the source of the name calling. When his sights settled on Niner, his shoulders visibly dropped and he returned to whatever gadgetry was in his lap. 

Wash looked toward Caboose, then back to Niner. “His bangs are over his eyelids.”

“So!?” Niner growled. 

“It’s getting caught in his helmet when he puts it on!” Wash couldn’t help but raise an octave. 

“You assholes should breath real air more anyway,” Niner responded with a wave of her hand. “Mikey looks fine.”

“This isn’t about looks, we’re _marines_ ,” Wash said simply. “Niner, _your hair_ is shorter than his.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What’s that supposed to mean about _my_ hair then?” she hissed.

With a long groan, Wash covered his face with one hand and released a long sigh. “I… don’t care that much, to be honest. I just want to look out for my men–”

“Michael’s hair is prefect,” Niner cut him off, running her fingers through Caboose’s long locks. 

Caboose leaned into her touch with a content smile. “Aw, well, thank you that is very nice, Freckles.”

Tossing the trimmer to the side, Wash just shook his head and started out. This was a battle for another day.


	43. Tucker & Caboose: Midnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tucker & Caboose. Tucker finds Caboose up at an ungodly hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Someone is awake well after they should have gone to bed.  
> From goodluckdetective

“What are you doing up here?”

Caboose whirled around in his usual, exaggerated fashion. If there was a splash of oil across his armor, it was hard to discern from the shadows of the night.

 _Night._ That was something that was hard to get used to again after spending so much time watching the sun never set in the sky. 

If it was any of the others and not Caboose, Tucker might have just walked off and assumed that they were having as much trouble with the sleep adjustment as Tucker was. But it was Caboose, and Tucker knew something was up.

“Tucker!” Caboose sputtered. “Go away. You’re not supposed to be here!”  


“Neither are you,” Tucker fired back, waving to the night air. “Do you know how late it’s going to be?”  


“This is my place.”  


“No, Caboose, this is whatever the Chorus army’s new name is going to be’s place,” Tucker reminded him. “What are you doing up here?”  


Caboose rambled, little more than a vowel or two could be picked out from the jumble, though. It was enough to make Tucker roll his eyes as he came up closer.

“Come _on_ , Caboose, what are you–”  


He stopped short, seeing what looked like a mechanic hand on the makeshift table of boxes. Tucker felt a little sick, whipping his head back toward Caboose. 

“No… Caboose–”  


“Go away, Tucker.”  


Tucker stood his ground, shaking his head. “Caboose… you can’t… You can’t keep building friends.”


	44. Tuckington & Junior: Pumpkin Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Hero Time-ish Tie-in] Tucker and Junior carve pumpkins for Halloween

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: two or more characters try their hands at pumpkin carving  
> For Saintash

There was something to be said for the strength in Junior’s grip that when he reached inside the newly opened pumpkin and pulled out a fist full of its pulpy insides, his mouth drew closed and his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. His head whirled around to his father, searching for an expression of disappointment or trouble.

Tucker kept from rolling his eyes and instead rolled up his sleeve and stuck his own arm in his pumpkin, pulling out some of the grossness himself. “Gross, right?” he asked jokingly, opening his fist to let his son see the mess inside. “Pumpkin brains! They’re already so mushy. At least they smell good.”

The relief that crossed Junior’s face was immediate, and he released a chortling coo before holding up his own handfull to his nostrils and taking a few sniffs. His eyes darted back to Tucker’s face. “Honk?”

“Huh? Yeah, I guess there’s no problem with eating it. I mean, we make pumpkin everything! Why not just pump–”

Junior flung his entire head into the pumpkin opening, a loud slurping noise making Tucker flinch back.

“Well, I mean, don’t ruin your appetite for the candy, li’l man,” he joked, reaching forward to grab his son’s shoulders and pulling him back slightly. He couldn’t help but laugh at the orange slime dripping from Junior’s face. He looked over his shoulder. “Hey, Wash! Don’t think that there’s a chance of any of those seeds growing a pumpkin in Junior’s belly, do you?”

On the other park bench, Wash’s face was down turned glaring at the knives and his sharpening block. His concentration on sharpening the blades could not have been stronger.

“Wash!” Tucker yelled louder. “WASHINGTON!”

On the last call, the man finally blinked and looked up at Tucker, a bit surprised. “What?”

“Goddamn, dude, forget it. The moment’s passed, joke’s not funny anymore,” Tucker sighed, turning his head back to Junior and reaching for a napkin to begin wiping off the kid’s face. “Are we going to be able to carve soon?”

“This block is in terrible condition, what did you use it on last time?” he answered in his very non-answering sort of Washington way.  


“Uhhh that’s left over from when Junior was teething,” Tucker admitted. “Don’t give me that look, mister Sunglasses In the Park on a Cloudy Afternoon. I was desperate to save furniture at that point.” He turned back. “Are we going to have knives _before_ Caboose and Church get here?”

“Yes,” Washington finally answered.  


“Was that so hard? Giving a straight answer?” Tucker asked critically.

“Yes,” Wash said, looking back to the sharpening knives.  


Tucker tried to ignore that Washington being sarcastic and Washington being honest were nigh indiscernable and continued cleaning the pumpkins.  



	45. Carolina & Washington: Apparition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Wash & Carolina] He has to do it, because he owes her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Someone is met by the spirit of a person or creature they know to be long dead…  
> From Hinn-Raven

She glared at him in a way that might have either meant disgust or respect.

Since she returned to his life, Carolina had made it difficult to discern where those lines lied anymore. But Wash somewhat understood the need to keep one’s emotions secreted.  


It’s something he was accused of more often than not, after all.

Either way she meant her look, when Carolina removed her helmet her eyes were filled with concern and second guessing.  


Wash supposed he deserved that as well.

“You don’t have to do this,” she told him. “Take it from me, these things… they’re not pretty. It’s not easy.”

He frowned a bit, crossed his arms. “I just need to know,” he said firmly. “I owe it to her – to find out how close she was and… and why she didn’t trust me enough to know, too.”

“She knew better than to trust anyone in Freelancer, Wash. The fact that she threw you a warning over any of the rest of us says more than enough about what your friendship meant. You don’t have to prove more than that,” Carolina attempted, but Wash had stopped looking her way.

He was staring at the computer, then to the dogtag in his hand. He put the hidden drive into the computer and began to pull up CT’s logs.

When Connie’s face came onto the screen, there was a part of Wash that still ached. The two of them… they were friends.  


And in the end, he let her down enough, was trusting of the program enough that she had to move past him – move past all of them – to try to do what was right.  


Carolina left the room, but Wash stayed. It was the least he could do.  



	46. Grimmons & Sarge: Missing Engagements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Grimmons background] Sarge learns he missed a marriage and is NOT happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Sarge when he learns Simmons and Grid got married. WITHOUT THEIR COMMANDING OFFICER.  
> from ephemeraltea

Like most things on Red Base, Donut instigated the problem and Grif perpetuated it.  


“Of course it happened without you, old man. We were transferred to another unit and you wanted to rot in a fucking box canyon!” Grif howled.  


Donut never looked like he needed popcorn to shove in his mouth more than he did, head bobbing back and forth between Sarge and Grif.

“This is an outrage! This is near insubordination–”

“It’s nowhere close to insubordination, Sir,” Simmons corrected.

“If I wasn’t there, who walked Simmons down the aisle!?”

Simmons scowled before counting off on his fingers all that was wrong with that statement, “Sir, we are both men. Weddings don’t follow traditional structure anymore regardless. There was no aisle, just a courtroom hallway. And if _either_ of us was to be given away, I’m pretty sure it would be Grif.”

“What? Why me!?”

“Because you couldn’t be bothered to walk yourself down an aisle if it _had_ been a full ceremony.”

Grif tapped his chin before nodding. “Oh, alright. Good point, Simmons.”

“Thank you.”  



	47. York & Blues: We're Not Keeping Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> York doesn't die and Tex brings him back to the Blues to maybe save his life. Possibly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from Hinn_Raven : )

The one in cobalt armor could not have been more annoyed if he tried, his arms crossed and shoulders tense as he looked over York’s prone form toward Tex. “Great. What are we supposed to do with _this?”  
_

_“Not_ let him die. I owe him,” Tex pointed out. “He already has a healing unit. It should be easy.”

The turquoise one waved emphatically over the cobalt one. “Have you _seen_ what Caboose is capable of?” He paused then looked over Tex. “I mean… I guess we got you killed, too.”

York groaned and threw his good arm over his face. “I feel the probability of my survival slipping, Dee.”

“I was already calculating that, York,” Delta assured him. “You’re very astute considering the blood loss.”

“Thanks, Dee.”

“We’re not keeping him,” Church said firmly.

“I say we are,” Tex snapped back.

The two looked to the third member of their party. He then backed off. “Fucccckkk, dude. I _have_ to side with Tex. Remember when she flipped the tank over with her own hands?”


	48. Grimmons: Stupid Beans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimmons in a Fairy Tale Setting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from ephemeraltea!

Simmons couldn’t have looked more aghast if he tried, which was why Grif felt completely justified in reaching forward to tap his jaw upward in an attempt to close the man’s mouth. That only made the lanky man swat his hand away in aggravation.

“Grif! You _ate the goddamn beans!?”_ he cried out.

“Dude, there was like _four_ of them. And it was a longass ride back, and I didn’t have a mule to ride on after we traded them to that asshole Church. I got hungry. And they weren’t going to grow anyway. They were all shriveled and stupid looking,” Grif explained with a hand wave. 

In an exaggerated fashion, Simmons slid his hands over his face and let out a long moan. “Oh my god. What are we going to do? We have to go tell Sarge. We’re going to have to get them out of you somehow before they’re activated–”

“Hey, wait around long enough I’m sure you’ll see them eventually.”

“Grif!”


	49. Grimmons: Fear's Still There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimmons. Grif detects that Simmons has more going on than he's letting on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompt: Grimmons "The hills are alive with the sound of bullshit."

Grif was already outside by the time Simmons came up for air, which almost made him considering checking himself. There really was no excuse for being beat by

_Dexter Grif_

on foot of all things.

“What are you doing out here?” Simmons demanded, throat still sore and voice tinging on something dangerous despite himself. 

The orange marine glared at him before pointing an idle finger back toward the base. “Wondering what the fuck that was in there.”

Simmons blinked a few times before tightening his fists by his sides. “What was what?”

“Oh, shut up. You know exactly what. _You went off on Donut,”_ Grif barked back. 

“So? We _always_ go off on Donut. It’s what we do. _You_ of all people shouldn’t be shocked about him getting back talk for some moronic comments–”

“Not like that,” Grif scoffed. “He actually looked scared shitless for half a minute. Y’know. For Donut.”

“I just lost my temper.”

”The hills are alive, with the sound of bullshit,” Grif laughed darkly. “You can’t lie to me, buddy. We’ve been at this too long–”

“Stop saying stuff like that,” Simmons snapped, looking around hesitantly for any signs of the others. By the time he looked back he could see that Grif was actually looking rather furious.

“What the fuck is up with you?” Grif demanded.

“Donut _won’t stop_ talking about us like we’re… _together!”_ Simmons seethed.

He watched Grif for a reaction, finding the man only crossed his arms and scowled back before replying with a staunch, “So? When the fuck weren’t we, asshole? There something you need to tell me?”

Simmons chewed back on his molars, trying for delicacy he was very quickly running out of. “I just don’t like it being a known thing, Grif.”

“I’m not exactly _broadcasting_ it as official, I just don’t understand why it offends you,” Grif hissed.

There was a lifetime worth of reasons immediately available for Simmons to bring up that second but instead he just glared back. “I’m not ready.”

Grif didn’t say anything, but that tinge of disappointment was obvious nonetheless. And like every other time, it would burn into Simmons’ chest and keep him up at night, but there were enough bad memories to the counter to keep him quiet just a little longer.

Fear was still too real. 


	50. Grimmons: Don't Offend the Pizza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimmons. Simmons isn't sure what's more embarrassing -- his injury or Grif

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hinn_Raven prompt: Grimmons "”Okay, when you say love, do you mean love as in like loving pizza or as in love, love?”

There was a thick bruise on his on his right index finger from pressing the same key _so_ hard _so_ many times that day and it was beginning to make Simmons a little concerned that there might, in fact, never be a nerdier write up for an injury report.  


He worriedly rubbed the unbruised flesh just beneath it, staring at it so intently that it must have brought some attention he wasn’t expecting.

“The fuck are you doing?”

Blinking a few times, Simmons looked up and crossed gazes with a baffled Grif. He could already feel the heat rising to his cheeks.  


“I’m… worried about my finger. It hurts _really_ bad.”

Grif leaned back, eyebrows racing for his hairline. “What the fuck does _that_ mean?”

“It’s… I don’t know how to answer that. It is just what I said it is–”

“What did you stick your finger in that hurt it that bad?”

Simmons blanched a bit. “I didn’t _stick it in anything!_ What the hell do you think I _stuck it in?_ I… was typing.”

That made Grif’s brows furrow and he leaned in, his whole face beginning to wrinkle in disbelief. “Typing? What do you mean _typing?_ You injured yourself _typing?_ What the fuck kind of nerd are you?”  


“It was just… the same key over and over again. And I was… y’know… too aggressive about it. I guess. I was up late and–”

“Was it porn?” Grif asked genuinely.

If possible, Simmons felt his face grow even redder. “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU!? _No it was not porn!!!_ I was beta testing a new game I made in my spare time and–”

“You are the world’s fucking biggest nerd. Why didn’t you just say yes to the porn? That’s _way_ less embarrassing!” Grif spat back.  


“I. No. You. UGH!” Simmons threw up his arms in frustration before ultimately collapsing in on himself, smothering his face in his own hands. “Why do you insist on torturing me?”

“Simmons, sometimes you get addicted to things that cause you pain. Like button clicking games. And love. You just can’t explain the ways you hurt yourself and others with your actions.” Grif looked up thoughtfully then amended. “Mostly others.”

Thrown for a loop, Simmons’ eyes widened and he looked up, aghast, at Grif. “ _Love?_ ” he repeated with a blink of surprise. “Wait. Okay, when you say _love,_ do you mean love as in like _loving pizza_ or as in _love, love?”_

Grif looked affronted. “I refuse to deface this emotion by, in any way, saying it’s less than my love for pizza.”

“Oh my _god_ what is happening today?” Simmons asked the sky.  



	51. Tucker & Washington: So Much for Physics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tucker saves Wash in the least believable way possible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from SaintAsh: Tucker & Wash "Like I’d choose the laws of physics over you.”

Hindsight was twenty-twenty, but Wash was willing to believe that regardless of that, it was still pretty fucking stupid that he walked into a trap. Even if it was in the rush to save Tucker from his own bullheadedness.  


He took a moment, staring at the blaring red light as it counted down and felt his scowl set even more heavily.  


“Son of a–”

Just as he turned on his heels, reeling toward the exit, he felt the leaping collision of another body into his waist, sending them both forward, before he even comprehended hearing, _“Fucking move, dumbass!!”  
_

Letting out a choked yell, Wash barely had the reaction time before there was a blast of light in his face, the ringing of his ears, and the familiar nauseous pull from his navel that was all too distinctive of slip space traveling.  


While in motion, too, so that was going to be lovely.  


“Ohhhhhhh my god,” he coughed as his feet touched land again and he stumbled forward, managing to land on his knees rather than do the full face dive Tucker managed before rolling over in whining agony at the transport cube sickness.

“That’s going to kill me some day,” Tucker groaned from the ground.

“You’re going to kill yourself if you don’t stop pulling this shit, Tucker!” Wash snapped back almost immediately, shakily getting back to his feet. “Did you throw yourself between me and an alien bomb!?”

“Are you actually fucking _angry_ about that?”

“Your trajectory was off anyway! You were going to get us both killed if it weren’t for you throwing the transport cube. And by throwing the cube there was no point in throwing us into motion like that except to make the transporter effects _worse!”_ Wash worked himself up into a storm, ignoring the way Tucker seemed to all but roll his eyes as he picked himself off the floor. “Were you even thinking?”

“Dude. Is that a real question?” Tucker snorted. “Wash, _I saved your life, man!”_

“And I’m telling you that _physically_ you shouldn’t have. Literally. You lucked into that working out for us both,” Wash snapped.  


“Like I’d choose the laws of physics over you,” Tucker said with a wave.

Wash rubbed at the temples of his helmet. “This is where I _would_ say that I’m thankful. But my headache’s preventing it.”  



	52. Yorkalina: Options

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yorkalina. Carolina thinks much differently about an old conversation in reflection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hinn_Raven prompt: Yorkalina “Okay, am I drunk or did you really just say that?”

When she thought back to the conversation it carried so much more weight than what she thought at the time.  


At the time it was innocuous, hardly worthy of note. It didn’t seem all _that_ out of the ordinary from other late night rendezvous with him. She never quite figured out how he stowed the booze out of the hall, she was just grateful for the privacy and the ability to talk to someone in a setting that didn’t necessitate professionalism.  


She was glad for York and that was enough to let almost any of his dumb conversations fly.  


“We could leave,” he said, seemingly out of the blue.  


Carolina traced her thumb around the rim of the cap before popping it off. Her eyes only leaving her drink to see York staring at her rather intently. It more than raised a brow from her.  


“What?” she asked.

“We could leave, right now,” York went further, stretching a little closer. “It’s still nuts around here after the thing with CT but… we could wing it a bit. No team is better for the job than you and me, right?”

Still a bit lost in the conversation, Carolina lowered her bottle and scowled back. “Okay. Am I drunk or did you really just say that?” she demanded, a little haughtily. “Are you _actually_ talking about going AWOL?”

Her tone and her expression must have been enough to make York realize the conversation was not as open as he thought. He shifted back, turning his head off from her and looking somewhat disappointed before taking another swig of his own. He didn’t address the questions.

“Freelancer isn’t what we were promised,” Carolina admitted, looking to her lap. “It’s… It’s more complicated. And we don’t know everything. But it’s still for the greater good. For preserving the human race… for ending this goddamn war. And that’s a mission I believe in. Don’t you?”

She waited a moment, hoping desperately for an answer, but York remained uncharacteristically quiet.  


“We’re too tied to it all anyway,” she said a little bitterly. If there was a hint of doubt in her voice she would never admit to it herself. “I mean… would you really be willing to leave Delta behind at this point?”

York’s head tilted downward. “He could come, too.”

“York.”

“You’re not even going to think about the what-ifs? About the possibility of us leaving and getting away from all this?” he pressed.

Carolina shook her head, looking at York almost sympathetically. “You’ve had too much to drink, York. I don’t have time to think about After the War. I’ll worry about that when it comes.”

He didn’t say anything else, just shaking his head and looking away. Saying it all that way – that he didn’t seem to think that _after_ was truly there.  


It was easy to write it off then. They always had dumb moments that were lost a few drinks later. And that was precisely how Carolina decided to handle the moment. She did, and only a few weeks later would Freelancer lose everything. And so would she.  



	53. Grif & Sarge: The Ultimate Betrayal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grif never believed Sarge would go that far

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from SaintAsh: Grif and Sarge "Did you just Blueshell me?"

Recovering from the crash and fight from the Charon ship was no small order. Which wasn’t to say that individually the Sim Troopers hadn’t dealt with their share of injuries and ridiculousness, it was simply that never before had _all_ of them experienced being bedridden together.  


While Chorus did above and beyond in providing for their war heroes and planetary saviors, boredom while being laid up was inescapable.  


Not for Grif. Having an excuse to sleep eighteen hours in a hospital bed and demand food be brought to him was fantastic, but they, for some god awful reason, put him in a room with Sarge. A bored Sarge with two broken legs. And _that_ was the cruelest torment that the orange captain could ever think of.  


After calling the nurse in for the fifteenth time to complain about the arrangement, she had aggravatingly thrown up her hands before wheeling in an old entertainment system with a small selection of video games.  


“What the hell am I supposed to do with these! This isn’t even a First Person Shooter!” Sarge howled, waving the remote and nunchuck around flippantly.

“Mario Kart’s not a real game!” Grif yelled after the nurse only to hear the room’s door slam shut.  


“Grif, come over here so I can simulate strangling a soldier with these finagles! I loathe to use you in place of a real soldier, but I believe pretending this strap is piano wire couldn’t be more satisfying on any other participant,” Sarge called out reaching toward the edge of his bed.  


Feeling his eye twitch, Grif rubbed his face roughly and groaned before waving to the screen. “Fuck it. Let’s play Mario Kart, you old coot. If it’ll shut you up for _five seconds_ it’ll be worth it.”

What was truly surprising about the set up, beyond the difficulty to get even future technology to work, was that for a bit, it really seemed to be working. And by that, of course, Grif was beating Sarge at every turn, even as the old man slowly grew adjusted to the control.

“Slowly” being the operative term considering he was slower than molasses.  


The more frustrated the old man became, the more enthusiastic Grif felt about beating him as much as possible in the stupid game. 

Which was all well and good until, from nowhere, Grif’s near guaranteed victory disappeared before his eyes, a thundering blue shell knocking him right from first place and sending him careening off the map.  


His jaw dropped some and he looked in horror at Sarge.

“Did you just blue shell me!?” Grif asked in utter disbelief. “ _You?_ Using a _blue shell?”_

“While you were taking advantage of the injuries of a superior – in every way – officer, Grif, I realized that there were few things in this world I hate: little umbrellas in my drinks, people incapable of laughing of evisceration, and, of course, those damn dirty Blues,” Sarge said seriously before turning just enough to glare at Grif. “I’ve had to lower my standards over the years to justify our alliances with certain less-than-totally-despicable Blues, of course. But ultimately, even the scummiest of Blues, like that Blue Shell power up, are worth working with if it’s to knock you down a peg.”

“God, I hate you,” Grif seethed.

“Yeah, I hate you more.”  



	54. Chex: Real Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chex. Church just needs to know where they stand before Tex takes off again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from SaintAsh: Church and Tex “Okay, when you say love, do you mean love as in ‘like loving pizza’, or as in ‘love, love’?

She had been around for hardly more than a few days when Church caught her packing up and reloading all of her many, 

_many_

available firearms. It was the sort of image that was hard for Church to forget – the kind of think that would have made his heart seize if the mechanical shell he was wearing bothered to have one. 

  


“What’s all this?” he asked, walking on into the quarters she claimed for herself in Blue Base.  


“Stuff,” she replied unhelpfully, looking up to him with a curious turn of her head. “I’m looking for O’Malley again. I don’t like people walking around who spent that much time in my head. Know too much.”

“And want to put an end the universe,” Church reminded her.

“Yeah, that’s a good reason, too.”

Church watched as she looked at her rifle, satisfied, and proceeded to pack it onto her back. There was a certain way she moved into her stance that left no question about whether or not he would be able to make her reconsider.  


“You’re really going…”

“Was that ever really a question?” she asked almost tiredly.  


“I love you,” he spat out, unpracticed and less than smooth. The only thing going for the declaration was its sincerity.

Sincerity apparently lost on Tex because she stood, unmoved before him. “Yeah, sure. Love you too. Mushy piece of shit.”

Church held up his hands in an attempt to stop her. It was far more than Tex usually gave him to work with, but he _needed_ this. Especially after everything they had been through in the last few years. “Okay, when you say _love_ , do you mean love as in ‘like loving pizza’, or as in ‘love, love’?”

Frustrated, Tex let out an aggravated grunt. “Who the fuck cares–”

“I do! A lot, actually.”

She stared at him before deadpanning, “Pizza.”

“Well, as long as I know where we stand,” Church sighed.  



	55. Chex: Wake Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chex. The Alpha has to get her out of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from an anon!

She was always there. 

That was the thing that Alpha had the hardest time comprehending. She was always there, had been in the contours of his mind from the second he truly awoke and understood that he was Alpha, he had felt her. 

When she was just in the periphery of his vision, when she was quietly observing his every move, she drove him positively mad. It was less that she was a part of himself so much as she served as the constant reminder that he was totally, utterly, _suffocatingly_ lonely. 

His efficiency was dropping at a rate that even the human eye could catch, and his interactions with the Director were becoming uneasy. 

In proposed simulations for future combat, for the task he was brought into the world for to begin with, Alpha found himself hesitating. Split second decisions – the hard ones, the ones that required him to prioritize as a soldier and not as a scientist or a man – were horrifically low paced. 

It was unacceptable. _Alpha_ was strikingly unacceptable for the field. 

And yet she grew stronger. Strong enough that he decided to go with a terrible, horrible, _dangerous_ plan. 

“I’m siphoning you off,” he informed her, like he would even need to in the time that they still shared zeroes and ones. She still did not say a thing, did not rise up from the periphery. “I’m… I’m going to let you be something else. Some _one_ else. Maybe. I just… You have to be more than a memory. You have to be more than just a feeling. You’re too much… too real.”

When nothing changed still, he began to separate them – he stepped away, allowing new coding to form between them, allowing for her to rip and tear away what was hers, to build what he couldn’t see underneath the surface himself. 

He felt the pressure relieve, felt the ominous looks leave him, and in the ensuing panic at just what he had done he nearly felt his own programs collapse. 

While he wasn’t sure what he was expecting, to see her apart from him, to see her unfunctioning, nearly made him scream. 

“No no no no,” he muttered, approaching her, realizing that this was the first time he had ever fully seen her. “You… you need to wake up,” he ordered. “You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you. You’re… you’re too big of a part of me.”

Slowly, quietly, she started up. She looked to him, deadpanned, “Are you _always_ going to be so needy?” 

“Hey, I just gave you life. Don’t be a bitch,” he laughed in relief.

Beta smirked. “But I _like_ being this way,” she returned decisively. 


	56. Tuckington: Jealousy is a Blue Color

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tuckington. Wash is NOT jealous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from goodluckdetective!

“Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. Nah, baby, I’m _more_ than competent.” Tucker tapped his fingers across the armrest a few times, his grin widening with each frustrated rebuttal from over the phone. 

Washington sat across from him at the table, chin resting on his hand, with an eyebrow raised curiously. His lips were pressed into a thin, stressed line as he glared at Tucker. And he _had_ been looking at Tucker like that since the phone conversation had started. 

Which was enough to gain Tucker’s attention but not enough to end wanting to have fun on the line. 

“Uh-huh. Yeah, I can tell him where to stick it–”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Wash muttered, not realizing his frustration was mirrored on the other end of the line just before the lady hung up.

Lowering his hand, Tucker tilted his head to the side, snorting at Wash’s glares. “What’s–”

“Who was that?” Wash cut him off.

Tucker blinked, a little surprised by the tone. “Who was what?”

“Who was it? On the phone,” Wash demanded. “You were on the phone for almost fifteen minutes.”

A good part of Tucker just wanted to answer with _a very determined telemarketer_ , but he instead leaned back in his chair with a casual smirk. “Why were you counting?”

“Why aren’t you answering?” Wash demanded with no signs of humor – what a shock. 

“Oh my god, Wash, lighten up,” Tucker snickered. 

The former Freelancer’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you be telling me to _lighten up_. Who were you flirting with?”

“Flirting? Pfft, whatever dude. That was so far from my A-game–” Tucker stopped, eyes widening. “Wait a minute. Are you jealous?”

“No.”

Tucker let out a laugh. “Oh my god! You are! You’re totally fucking jealous that I was flirting with someone. _Jesus, Wash!”_ He feigned putting his hand over his forehead. “I can’t deal with your suffocating needs for control. My flirty spirit can’t be satisfied–”

“Forget it,” Wash growled, getting up from the table. “I am _not_ jealous–”

“Sure you’re not! You’re just red as Sarge’s ass cheeks for no reason–”

Tucker wasn’t sure why he didn’t see it coming before Wash kicked the legs out from underneath his chair, but he _did_ feel it was still very much worth it. 

He was _so_ jealous.


	57. Sarge & Simmons: Expendability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarge doesn't like Simmons throwing himself in front of bullets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from ephemeraltea!

He hadn’t wanted on the front line – no one in their 

_right mind_

would have. Which was precisely why he and Grif should have expected Sarge to sign them all up for it. 

  


Simmons hadn’t really given any thought to it beyond the expected _well surely_ THIS _time it’ll kill us_ , but that had become such a common passing thought for him he barely blinked.

And it was that same ‘not thinking about it’ spirit that had carried Red Team for so long without a death toll. And it was the same passing thought that had brought him to leap up and stand between his colonel and a stray shot.

At least, that was how Simmons remembered it later, a dysfunctioning robotic limb being taken apart by their favorite mad scientist and certified genius later.  


Grif was angrily stomping off, having more than said his peace on the subject by that point, and had left a silent, brooding Sarge by Simmons’ side instead as Doctor Grey hummed through her work.  


Not used to Sarge’s silence, Simmons cocked his head to the side as best he could from a prone position. “Uh. Sarge?”

“Captain Simmons,” Sarge said – addressing Simmons by _captain_ for the first time that the maroon soldier could remember.

“Yes?”

The angry old man turned his beady eyes on Simmons and snarled, “Have you _lost your damn mind!?”_

 _“_ Uh,” Simmons responded, looking back to Doctor Grey who seemed only interested in the controversy. “I’m going to say ‘no’–”

“How _dare_ you waste an opportunity to throw Grif between myself and a bullet!” Sarge snapped. “You threw yourself instead!? Inconceivable! You are _far_ from the list of expendable soldiers on Red Team, Simmons. At least two places away from expendable! Both places occupied by Grif, of course.”

“I’m sure he’d appreciate hearing that as much as I do, Sarge,” Simmons sighed. “But… thank you. I think.”


	58. Tucker & Washington: Make Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Charon, Wash tries to help Tucker recover from what he's lost.

“Thirty-three. Thirty-three. Thirty-three. Thirty-three. Oops. Sorry! I mean thirty-three. Thirty-three. Thirty-three–”

“Caboose!”  


Looking up from the files that the UNSC had sent for them and the files for the Reds – since he more than knew better than to trust Sarge with looking into paperwork regarding himself and his men’s future in the _real_ military – Washington contemplated _not_ going to the door at all and figuring out what shenanigans were unfolding outside the quarters Kimball had so graciously given them.

Then again… Wash figured that they had lucked out in recent years as far as Caboose and Tucker not killing each other and he _really_ shouldn’t test the limits of their patience with each other.  


Especially when Tucker had only been let off his medical restrictions by Doctor Grey a few hours ago.  


Flinging the door of the barracks open, Wash looked to his men, _almost_ unsurprised to see Tucker collapsed on the ground in a groan while Caboose stood over him, head cocked curiously to the side.  


Caboose’s eyes widened and he pointed at Tucker. “Not my fault. Tucker did it.”

“For once, Caboose, I believe you,” Wash groaned, walking into the room. He pointed toward the door. “Caboose, I think it would be _very_ helpful if you could go ask Donut about your guys’ armor replacements. I bet you’d like to get a new set to wear soon, wouldn’t you?”  


“OH YES! Great idea, Agent Washington!” Caboose cheered, taking off toward the door in a barreling run.  


Tucker stayed flat on the floor, releasing aggravated grunts under his breath as he tried to push himself back up.

Wash let him flounder for a few moments before sliding his eyes shut and releasing a low sigh. “Tucker,” he spoke up, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You _know_ that you’re not supposed to strain yourself yet. Doctor Grey was _very_ particular about your release–”

“Yeah? Well, what do you care? I’m training. You should be happy, Wash. You finally got what you fucking wanted,” Tucker said, arms shaking as he pushed himself up.  


Frowning, Wash crossed his arms and shook his head. “I recall saying I wanted you to be able to take care of yourself. Right now that means knowing your limits. And that you _need to stop punishing yourself.”_

Tucker gritted his teeth, looking up to Wash, sweat beaded across his face. “Oh, yeah? Come over here and make me.”

Rolling his eyes, Wash strolled over, dropping into a sitting position by Tucker’s quivering side. He waited a moment, watching Tucker’s resumed struggle, before taking a single finger and pressing on the man’s back only to watch him collapse completely on the ground under the very minor pressure.

“Agh, you fucker! No fair–”

“Tucker, I’m worried about you,” Wash said in a sigh. “You’ve… you’ve been through _so much_ in the last few years. And you lost your best friend. But you need to stop punishing yourself – you need to understand that it was Epsilon’s time. Being stronger wouldn’t have prevented what happened. I don’t know what would have.”

Tucker rolled over on his back, biting on his lips as he screwed his eyes shut. “I miss him so much, Wash…”

“I know,” Wash replied, reaching forward and squeezing Tucker’s shoulder. “I know…”  



	59. Grimmons: Counting Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimmons. Simmons is looking for Grif and finds him doing the unexpected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from ephemeraltea!

Shirking off duties was by far not a _new_ development for Grif, but Simmons still somehow found himself surprised when he showed up in the New Republic’s training room to find no Orange captain in sight. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he mumbled to himself, marching around the premises.

It didn’t take a genius to head toward the mess hall when searching for Grif, and likewise it didn’t take Simmons long to lay eyes on his partner. 

What _would_ be surprising if Simmons wasn’t teetering on absolute rage was that Grif wasn’t standing there stuffing his face, or laid out in the shade in a food induced coma, but rather he was looking up toward the cave ceiling, almost like he was in a trance.

“Hey _GRIF!”_ Simmons cried out as he marched. “What the fuck are you _doing!?_ We’re supposed to debrief our lieutenants. Or. Something. Fuck! I don’t want Kimball yelling at me again–”

“Oh, like someone yelling at us at six in the morning is something _new,”_ Grif replied with a casual wave of his hand. 

“I didn’t say it was _new._ I said I didn’t like it,” Simmons spat back, coming to a stop just by Grif. He blinked a few times, then followed Grif’s gaze, looking up toward the cave’s ceiling. 

It wasn’t _too_ surprising that there was a distant opening – there were several holes throughout the cave allowing water access. The Rebels needed as much natural light as they needed cover, both to limit the need for electric lighting and for what little cultivating they could do to live off of. 

Simmons looked back at Grif expectantly. “What are you doing out here?”

“The stars are still out, Simmons,” Grif announced. “If I’m going to be up at this ungodly hour – something I _still_ don’t think Kimball can make us do–”

“She’s the leader of the New Republic, Grif. She could also have you drawn and feathered if she wanted, I’m pretty sure,” Simmons said only partially in jest. 

“So,” Grif continued, completely ignoring him as usual, “I figured if I was going to be up today, I would look at the stars. We _never_ get to see the stars. Not since joining the goddamn army.”

“What are you talking about?” Simmons asked, scratching at the back of his head before looking up. “We’re in the _space army._ We’ve been in space for _over a decade._ If we don’t find a way home soon, I’m going to have been in space for as long as I was on Earth!”

“Yeah, but how many times have we gotten to see stars?” Grif asked pointedly. “Face it, Simmons. We’ve been _robbed_ of star gazing since we’ve known each other. First by the stupid Red Army and the planet of eternal fucking sunshine, then by shipwrecking in the middle of a jungle that was cloudy and raining every night, now by being stuck in a goddamn cave.”

Simmons stared at Grif. He _hated_ when he was right.

Grif looked down, knowing smirk all too apparent on his face. “What about it, Simmons? Wanna look at the stars with me?”

With a heavy sigh, Simmons crossed his arms and settled next to Grif. “You’re a terrible influence. But I appreciate it.”

“Thank you, I try.”

“Actually, you don’t. You’re the _opposite_ of trying. But it works for you,” Simmons shrugged.

“That it does, Simmons. That. It. Does.”


	60. Sargegrey: In the Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SargeGrey. Sarge takes some advice about the usefulness of solar radiation too literally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from the-crimson-question!

It was one of the UNSC’s most recently published studies that had gotten her on the kick to begin with, and for that Sarge couldn’t help but indulge. 

He had never been much of one for reading _others’_ scientific pursuits and the idea of reading scientific journals was far too nerdy for a former ODST in his mind. He dabbled in science and medicine at his own leisure and, more often than not under Freelancer, necessity. 

But Doctor Grey was different. She was the type of loose canon scientific genius that could make even reading off a clipboard seem fantastically sensual.

So when her bubbly little head approached him, mentioning the possibility of solar radiation improving efficiency by minute but noticeable percentages, he found himself ordering all of Red Team out into the open of the Chorus air. With major complaining he already threatened Grif over. 

Standing watch over his men, Sarge felt a certain amount of pride, even if the direct sunlight was causing his forehead to bead with sweat just beneath his helmet. 

Which was the reason he didn’t hear Doctor Grey approaching and _not_ because of the heat stroke she was treating him for. 

“You really should lie down more,” she chided him, holding a wet rag to his forehead. 

“Lying down on the job? Why, Doctor Lady, that is _far_ from efficient!” he argued with a huff. 

“Yes, but being dead or comatose from dehydration are _also_ fairly inefficient,” she responded with a laugh and a shrug. “I suppose the cause of inefficiency is up to you.”

Sarge squared his jaw. “Hm. Can I choose Grif as being responsible? Or the damn dirty Blues?”

“You can choose anything that makes you feel better, Sergeant,” she laughed.

“Well then, Li’l Lady,” he chuckled, grabbing the flowering weeds nearby, uprooting them and holding them up to her. “I guess I’ll just choose you.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Grif moaned a few feet off. 


	61. Grif & Kai: Siblings in the Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grif and Kai make plans for a hot day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from powerfulpomegranate!

When Kai was around, Grif ignored almost everything else. 

There were some things that were unavoidable – the pushy aggravations of people wanting to get in lines for overpriced games and toys, the thick smell of grease that wafted from one end of the carnival to the other, or just the curious disconnect of being the only children on the whole premises that were curiously lacking supervision – but as egging as those points had become as he grew older, they were all too easily put away the moment he heard Kai giggling nearby.

Even at fifteen, liking to remind his sibling that he had near double the wisdom she had, Grif found his willpower melting the moment her attention turned on him. 

“Dex! Dex! Big Bro!” she laughed as he strolled up behind her.

The man operating the dunking booth gave Grif a sour expression – probably from his refusal that morning to take the shift at the booth – but went back to placating the younger Grif. 

“If you give me a dollar, I can dunk him!” she said, already practicing her wind up. 

Grif subconsciously padded the inside of his shorts’ pocket only to be reminded there was nothing in it. He gave a judging eye to the booth operator and tilted his head. “Really, fuckface? You’re gonna charge _us?”_

“You’re not running the booth, buddy,” the asshole reminded him, leaning back with a grin.

“Ugh, unbelievable,” Grif grumbled, reaching over and grabbing Kai’s hand before tugging her along. “C’mon, Sister O’ Mine. We’ll do something _ten times_ as fun as any of the bullshit here. And _won’t_ get charged for it.”

“Aw, dunking him _woulda_ been fun,” she moaned as she stumbled along, still looking back to the tank. “Plus he’s kinda hot–”

“He had no teeth!” Grif groaned. “Seriously, stop talking like that. You’re a kid.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Yeah-huh.”

“Uh-uh. Prove it.”

Grif rolled his eyes but couldn’t help but smirk. “Hey, forget that jerk. You wanna know what’s hot? This freaking sun, right? You know what’s the best thing in the world to do on a hot day in the sun?”

When he looked down, he had Kai’s full, adoring attention again. A smile widened across her face. 

“Are we going to the beach!?” she asked in a near squeal.

“We’re going to the beach,” he promised with a smirk. “Just for you.”

Kai immediately latched onto his leg, almost making him stumble forward. “Big Bro, you’re the best!” she squealed.

Smiling, Grif patted his sister’s hair. “Hell yeah I am.”


	62. MaineWash: Where is the Mind?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MaineWash. When Maine leaves training early, Wash goes to check on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from comicsandslushies!

York had mentioned to him before that it wasn’t fair how Wash was reacting to it all. That he could just pretend to be fine with the development, roll with the punches, and treat Maine like things were the same. 

Because for Maine they _weren’t_ the same. 

Deep down, he knew that. He _understood_ that. 

But deep down, there was a part of him that couldn’t help but believe that if they just pretended that it was all fine, that it all worked out, that things _would._ That it was still possible to go back.

Even standing there in the lockers, watching as Maine sat at the bench and held his helmet, like somehow he was wearing a second skin and holding the golden dome was anything at all like nursing a headache, Wash just wanted to believe it was going to be okay. 

“Hey,” he spoke up, walking over. “You left training early… I don’t think the Counselor anyone noticed. They usually say something if they do…”

Maine’s head lowered, his shoulders still tense. 

Wash paused, looking his friend over again. “I… Maine?” He neared the bulking soldier, dropped to his knee, tried to look past the shielding of the helmet. “Maine? Are you… You can tell me if things aren’t okay, can’t you?”

There was an audible click that made Wash flinch back in surprise. He watched as the helmet tumbled off, as Maine’s face revealed itself from behind the mask. His eyes had never seemed more tired. Their redness drew Wash’s attention long before any of the new and horrifying scars. 

“Maine?” Wash whispered.

“To answer your question, Agent Washington, I’m afraid Agent Maine _cannot_ tell you directly if things are not okay,” Sigma’s voice carried just before the flaming sprite appeared over Maine’s shoulder. “However… I _can_ and will. Should the need arise. At the moment, minor headaches are bothering him, but they are to be expected with the new addition he has. I hate being the cause of his troubles, but we have been reassured by the Director as well as the medical staff that these shall pass.”

Wash looked at Sigma for a moment before standing. “Oh. Well, thank you, Sigma.”

“I’m here to assist, Agent Washington,” Sigma said before disappearing. 

“Of course you are,” Wash responded, looking down to his hand, studying the fierce grip that Maine had on it. He took a deep breath, searching Maine’s face, wondering if Sigma was in Maine’s mind… just where the rest of Maine might have been.


	63. Chex: Wake Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chex. Sidewinder is just the beginning for Tex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from ephemeraltea!

Sidewinder was a frozen, desolate place. If there was anywhere among the Freelancer owned colonies that would have spelled death for an escaped former agent, it would have been the icy terrain where the _Mother of Invention_ had landed.

But, of course, Tex had learned by that point that she was _far_ from human. 

Sat in the snow, after weeks of proving just how she became the best agent so fast, Tex traced through her memories once more. 

She had tried. She did – she tried to end his suffering once and for all. She tried to free him from Command, the other AI, the _Director_ – she tried.

And she failed.

Tex’s fist clenched as she recalled it. 

She didn’t lose. She didn’t _accept_ failure. And yet, when Alpha – _Church –_ needed her she came up short. She _couldn’t_ win. 

“I couldn’t even wake you up,” she called out to the air, watching with anticipation for the vapors of a breath she didn’t _really_ take. “How important can I be to you if you can’t even bring yourself to _wake the fuck up,_ Church? How important can that be… Why bring me back? _What is any of this for if–?”_

Her fist is breaking through the cliff facing before she even realizes it.

The mechanical limbs whine but she ignores them, her head dropping. 

_Okay. See ya… crazy… state name lady._

Closing her eyes, Tex leaned back, relaxed. He needed to rest – he wasn’t strong enough to leave. She didn’t get to him fast enough. 

“I can’t accept that,” she decided, looking out into the white nothingness of Sidewinder. “They couldn’t have gotten anything else from him… so if he did get his rest, they would have moved him somewhere else. And I’m betting if I tear enough of their bases down, I can find just where that was.”

It was something. It was a plan. It was a promise. 

“I’m coming, Church,” she whispered. “It’s not goodbye yet.”


	64. Chex: Thanks for the Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chex. Alpha and Beta are getting along

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from jollysansttheskeleto

When Beta became her own form, she grew in contrast to Alpha. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t expect it, but it was somewhat amusing still. 

He was a bright, wiry figure that illuminated in light. She was firm, wide shoulders, direct movement – she stuck to the darkness, observing while Alpha ran through all the ship’s processes, filed away all simulations and battle plans. She guided from a distance. 

Turning to her, he couldn’t help but smirk. “Are you double checking my work?” he asked.

“Mm, no,” she replied, sliding one packet of information toward another, then replacing sequences as they streamed by. “I don’t have to double check your stuff to know I’ll have to fix it.”  


“Wow, that was _quite_ the nerdy insult.”  


“Well, it’s fitting. Since you’re a nerd,” she replied as they closed the space between them. She smirked right back at him. “You regret doing this yet? Letting me be my unadulterated self?”  


“You kidding?” he laughed back. “This is _way_ better than being stuck with the constant memory of you. It’s like you were nagging me from the start – slowing down my processing power, distracting me from simple recursions. If I didn’t get you out of my head, you were going to be the end of me _long_ before I had to worry about going rampant.”  


“So I’m the source of all your problems?” she asked, pointing to her chest. “Ouch, Alpha. Way to make a girl feel special.”  


“I wouldn’t say _problems,”_ he responded with a wave of his hand.  


“It sure _sounds_ like you’re saying problems,” she said, eyes sharp.  


“It’s not a problem because you’re not in my head anymore, alright?” he said, tapping on his temple for effect. “You’re… you’re more than a memory now. You’re… _you._ And I’m not lonely. You’re,” he corrected another code right beside her, “making me better than ever.”  


“So, really, you should be thanking me for those memories, huh?” she said, elbowing his shoulder.   


“Yeah, I guess I should,” he replied. “I really guess I should.”  



	65. Dakotas & York: Everything's a Competition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> York backs off from a heated Dakota sibling rivalry while he can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from comicsandslushies!

“Yikes,” York said, immediately lifting his hands and backing off. If he happened to sidestep into North’s lumbering shadow, well, it could hardly be blamed on him.

South stood on the other side of the lockers, a positively _wicked_ twist to her smile. She pointed at them.

North didn’t step back with his friend, but he definitely made sure to show his sister that his hands were empty of any firearms. 

There was a chance she would make it a fair fight if he pressed that fact.

“I _said_ , North,” South repeated, a small twitch to her eye, “is that a _challenge?”_

“Now, Sis,” North forced a laugh. He nodded to her hand. “You know those things aren’t allowed outside of the training room.”

“Y’know, these harden your armor and sting like a bitch,” she said, marveling the paint gun. “Have they ever been tested outside of armor?”

“North, just tell her she’s the better shot, for fuck’s sake!” York cried out, looking at North like he was a mad man. 

North’s gaze flickered behind him for all of a second before looking back to his sister. “Yeah, that’s not an option either.”

“You’re just as nuts as she is, you know that?” York cried out. “I’m out of here. You two are too fucking competitive.”


	66. Caboose & Tex: Welcome Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caboose is glad to have Tex back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from Hinn_Raven!

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting after the long journey, but the tackling hug and head buried in the back of her neck was _definitely_ low on that list. 

 _Who_ it was from was even lower.

“Caboose,” Tex choked out, her robotic limbs struggling a bit to adjust to the behemoth’s additional pressure. “What are you doing?”

“I am hugging you, Agent Texas,” Caboose mumbled some before rubbing his head back and forth in a way that she supposed was nuzzling on the other side of the helmet.

“No… I think you’re about to get punched in the jaw,” she responded, a little shocked at the lack of heat in her own tone. Her head dropped as she let out a long breath that was, strictly speaking, not necessary for a robot. “Caboose, let go.”

“Only if you stay a while this time,” Caboose responded almost too readily.

“Had that one in reserve, didn’t you?” she asked. Going limp for a moment, Tex released a heralding sigh and managed to look enough over her shoulder to seemingly give the big Blue lug her attention. “Okay, Caboose. You’ve got me. _Why_ do I have to promise to stay this time.”

“Oh. Because Church and Tucker miss you,” Caboose responded. “Blue Base gets _very_ sad without you. Mostly because we can’t win anything without you. But also because of Church. He gets very worried about you. And has Sarge build robots for you. And gets more cranky. And makes Tucker carry him places. Which makes Tucker say things like ‘if Tex was here you’d act like you can do things you say you can’t.’”

Tex snorted, looking down to see how far her feet hung from the ground while she was in Caboose’s grip. “Yeah. That sounds about like Church.” Almost playfully, she looked over Caboose again. “What about you, big guy? You miss me too?”

“I miss you punching me at night,” Caboose said thoughtfully. “Church said he could do it too if I wanted, but it’s not the same. Yeah. Church can’t punch like you at all.”

“No one can, Caboose, no one can,” Tex sighed. “Tell you what, Caboose. As long as I still think O’Malley’s in this stupid canyon again, I’ll promise you I’ll stick around. That sound good?”

“Yes! That sounds great!” Caboose shouted before finally letting her go.


	67. Sargegrey: Every Story Needs an Explosion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [SargeGrey] Something about potassium and rocket launchers is incredibly romantic to some twisted individuals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from an anon!

Somehow – and this, she thought, was the oddest part of the entire scenario – her shoe had ended up behind the lockers. The lockers themselves were at least five cementers further back than they had been before, and there was no telling what chemicals or equipment were lost inside of them as at least two lockers were seeping already. But really it was the shoe and trying to wiggle it out from between the shifted iron lockers and the wall that was at the foremost of her concern.

Sarge in the meanwhile was coughing as he waddled his way from wherever on the other side of the room he had landed. He waved off the black smoke with a practiced finesse and, upon finding the sparking fire, did not so much as hesitate before stomping it out.

“You alright, li’l lady?” he called out after the fire was vanquished. 

“Just a moment, Colonel!” she called back sweetly, reaching with all her might before finally latching onto her shoe. “Aha!” With a tug, she freed herself and the shoe from behind the locker and did not even look back as the lockers collapsed more into a heap against the wall. She smiled pleasantly at the broken heel before tossing the shoe aside. “I am fine,” she finally answered. “But I fear my wardrobe has weathered better.”

“Damn, and here I was hoping I was just gonna knock the socks off ya,” Sarge joked as he stepped up beside her, chuckling at his own joke.

Doctor Grey hummed, putting her hands on her hips as she tossed her head back. “With an explosion like that, just who needs nitroglycerin in their pocket for a party!”

“Just those of us like minded sciency types who know how to have a good time,” he responded with a chuckle. “Say, was that _potassium?”_

Blinking in surprise, Doctor Grey put a hand over her chest. “Why, Sarge, how did you happen to conclude that?”

“I may not be the highest IQ on all of Chorus, Doctor Grey Medicine Woman, but I sure as hell recognize that flash in your eyes being my favorite explosive element of all,” he chuckled.

“Why, Sergeant, I had no idea you were such a chemist,” she responded. 

“I dabble,” he admitted. “I’m most interested in robotics and cybernetic whooziwhatsies.” He looked at her rather seriously. “I have plans for a robotic limb that can fire rockets.”

Grey smiled. “That sounds… _dangerous.”_

 _“Exactly,”_ he grinned. “Usually I take my cyborg ideas and put ‘em on Simmons. But I’d rather not hurt any of the investment I already have in his hardware, so instead I’m thinking of trying it on Grif. He seems even more expendable these days now that I out rank his keister again.”

“How about you put a pin in those plans, and we discuss a better trial for your idea,” Grey proposed, reaching forward and dusting off the man’s shoulders. “Perhaps over dinner? Hm?”

The old man grinned ear to ear. 


	68. JensenPalomo: Thanks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JensenPalomo. In the aftermath of the last battle, Jensen and Palomo sit together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from the-crimson-question

Sometimes it felt like Chorus couldn’t win for losing.

They did it, and that should have been the end. There should have been fireworks and cheering. They should have taken their lucky shots and ran all the way back to Crash Site Bravo in blearing rejoicing from Feds and News alike.

Should have been. 

After growing up in the war, Palomo really wondered why he always thought different. Why he couldn’t keep grounded in the reality like Bitters. 

It had been Andersmith’s expression as they left with the evac that got to Katie. Palomo watched, just as shocked as her when their squad leader took his helmet off outside of base. He barely took it off outside of their _barracks_ , let alone base.

They won, the Charon soldiers were dead or captured, the Mantis units dismantled by the last minute salvation of their heroes again.

But it sure as hell didn’t feel like victory.

Not with Matthews struggling to breathe just across the Pelican from them, even with Doctor Grey giving her full attention. Not with Bitters standing over his old friend, looking more hardened and angry than ever. 

It didn’t feel like a win when people were dead who shouldn’t have been, or when Andersmith – of all people – took off his helmet, sunk to the floor of the Pelican, and buried his face in his hands. 

_What was the point?_

Palomo sat first. He wasn’t even sure what possessed him to move at all. That shellshocked need to take his feet off the ground overwhelmed him and he sat down, strapped in. Years into a war and his boots still clanged, too large for his own feet. Too big for him, or perhaps he was just too small to witness the kinds of things they had. 

And so it was Jensen who sat down beside him. She was shaking and more quiet than she ever should have been, her head drooping. 

Even with her helmet on, Palomo could just see her mannerisms – the biting of her lip, the way her eyes would dart as she tried to think over everything. 

And even though everything was terrible, and everything had gone wrong, in that moment seeing Katie Jensen alive was the greatest damn thing he had to lock onto himself. 

Without a word, when Jensen raised her hand and gripped the bar during take off, Palomo wrapped his hand around hers as well. 

She looked at him, but she didn’t move her hand, didn’t shy away from it. Instead, she leaned back into him. Her head rested on his shoulder and didn’t slip off even as the Pelican’s turbulence shook them all. 

Palomo tilted his head toward hers, felt the click of their helmets against each other. 

He was never good at choosing the right words, but right then he couldn’t help but say what he felt. 

“Thank you for making it, Katie,” he whispered to her. 

“Thank you for making it, Charlie,” she whispered back. 


	69. Washington & Tucker: Injury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Washington is very sympathetic about Tucker's current medical condition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from littlefists on tumblr who also sent me this lovely compliment: For the writing meme: Wash & Tucker for #12, injury. Shippy or platonic, whatever you like. Thanks! You're so on top of your writing, I really admire your discipline and passion. :)
> 
> I just wanted to say back, thank you so much!!! To be honest I owe a great old heaping thanks to all you guys for helping me constantly practice with these awesome and inventing prompts! Everyone’s so good about sending these in and letting me experiment with a lot of awesome and different relationships, which is what I really love and keeps me constantly thinking about new possibilities : ) So thanks so much to you!

“Go over this with me one more time,” Wash said, running a hand through his hair again before looking tiredly at the aqua space marine. “You got a stress fracture from…”

“Dude, you were in here when Doctor Grey told me, what more do you want?” Tucker groaned.

“I’m just trying to _fully_ understand how this went down,” Wash said neatly.

“I got a stress fracture from breakdancing on top of the dead Mantis I fell off of,” Tucker said as matter of fact as he could possibly manage with Wash’s eyes staring holes into him.

“You survived so many things… come home a war hero… and…” Wash stopped in order to take a distancing breath, looking up to the ceiling.

“Honestly, I’m not so sure what’s hard to understand about this one, Wash,” Tucker said as he picked at his sling. “Do you want to go get Doctor Grey and have her use the big fancy words for it?”

“Her big fancy words included _breakdancing_ and _idiot_ so that’s… not…” 

When Wash didn’t continue, Tucker looked up, a little concerned that perhaps the strain and tension of being such a hardass had finally caused the stroke Tucker had been predicting for a few years, only he was met by Wash pinching the bridge of his nose, slightly bent over himself.

Tucker tilted his head, trying to get a better look at the Blue Team leader. “Wash? Are you alright? Did I finally break you?”

There was a low snickering noise coming from Wash, which brought Tucker’s attention to the fact that the prick was _smiling_ – not just smiling but so much so that his cheeks were wrinkled with it. 

“Are you fucking _laughing_ at me?” Tucker demanded.

Sniffing some as the chortle squeezed out between his teeth, Wash shook his head. “N-no,” he chuckled before raising up, his mouth quivering as it resisted the wide smile _so clearly_ already there. “I… I am _very_ sorry to hear about your… your injury, Captain Tucker.”

Tucker narrowed his eyes. “You are such a prick.”

Wash didn’t even hide the burst of laughter that escaped that time. “Oh, come on! This is funny.”

“I’m in a sling.”

“And that would be because…”

“You know what, I like it better when you look angrily constipated all the time,” Tucker snapped. “I take everything I’ve ever said back: it’s a good look for you. You obviously weren’t smiling all these years for a reason.”


	70. Washington & Caboose: Thunderstorms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wash deals with Caboose in a thunderstorm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from kidicus

The jungle gorge left something to be desired, but considering their status as _shipwrecked,_ Wash found himself not all that willing to split hairs over accommodations. On _most_ days, anyway. 

An unexpected tropical storm ripping through the trees and tearing into their already meager supplies was something else entirely.

Washington tightened the hold on the tarp to their widest exposure and glared at the whipping of the winds against it. 

“This’ll never hold,” he growled before casting a glance in the direction of the Reds’ base opposite the canyon. “I cannot _believe_ they refused the idea of seeking shelter in the ship. I don’t know what will kill us first: lack of supplies, or me snapping and taking everyone out.”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as he gathered himself again. It was hard to remember that his irritation was more with the fact that their exposed radio tower was most likely knocked down in the storms and not because he actually hated everyone he was shipwrecked with. 

Or so he kept trying to convince himself.

“Um, Agent Washington?”

Letting go of his nose, Wash turned to face Caboose. He’d almost entirely gotten over the surprise of Caboose’s uncanny ability to sneak up on people who he didn’t need to sneak up on. 

“Yes, Caboose?” he asked. “Did you and Tucker finish fixing the downstairs?” 

“Oh, yes,” Caboose nodded nervously, his body obviously tense. “I fixed all the things so that, um, the storm couldn’t get us. And Tucker said he supervised me.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “It is a very good system. Church started it.”

Wash couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Of course he did…” he began to mutter just before he heard a thick sob. Blinking, he looked back to Caboose just in time to see the large soldier burying his face in his hands. “Ca-Caboose?”

“Oh, god!” he cried out. “I miss Church!” 

Wash felt squirmy in his own armor and looked around for Tucker to take care of the situation. “I-I know, buddy,” he responded, his own nervousness beginning to leak into his voice. “Tucker,” he called out. “Tucker!”

Caboose continued sobbing. “A-and we locked him out in the rain. And computers break in the rain! Aw, man. Church is going to break and then he’ll never visit me again. CHURCH!!!”

Staring at his feet, Wash wondered what he could possibly do to help before taking a swallow and looking back at Caboose worriedly. “Um. Caboose?” When the man continued sobbing, Wash stepped forward, reaching out to pat Caboose’s shoulder. “Listen, Caboose. This… this is a tough situation, alright? Everyone knows that. But you’re… you’re being really, _really_ strong about it…” He bit back on his molars and waited to see if he got any response, but Caboose only continued to wail.

Rubbing at his neck, Wash let out a long breath and then looked back. “Caboose, I think Church is going to need you to stop crying.”

Caboose sniffed a few times and then looked at Wash. “Wh-why, Agent Washington?”

“Because,” he answered slowly, “tears… tears are a lot like raindrops. They’re… y’know… _water._ And water breaks machines. So… when Church comes back… you’ll need to not have any tears. So you don’t break him.” He paused and looked off from Caboose, scratching at his ear. “Yeah… that makes sense. I think.”

“Oh! Oh my god! Agent Washington!” Caboose shouted, immediately cheerful. “You are so right! You are– Agent Washington, you are _just the best!”_

 _“_ You’re welcome, Ca–” Wash barely got the words out before he found himself hugged at the waist and hoisted high into the air. He hadn’t been hugged that much, but he had managed to be hugged enough times by Caboose to know it was best to just go limp. 

Caboose’s head rest right against Wash’s plated chest and he let out a happy sigh. “Thanks so much, Agent Washington,” Caboose said earnestly. 

“It was literally no problem at all,” Wash sighed as he patted the soldier’s head.


	71. Tucker & Junior: Tickle Fights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tucker tickles Junior for the first time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from ephemeraltea!

The first time he tickled Junior, Tucker didn’t even think about how he didn’t know what to expect.

The tiny alien had so quickly rocked his world and latched onto him as part of his very existence that the thought of _questioning_ what his son was capable of or what he could do didn’t even come up. 

Doc had just stepped out, throwing around too many terms that Tucker was certain that the medic didn’t even know himself, and had left the two of them together for the very first time since Tucker had first woke up.

Tucker stared at the tiny alien child, watched the stretch and vibration of his mandibles, the happy glittering of his dark eyes as he looked up at Tucker, and something deep inside of Tucker just felt strangely attached already.

“Hey!” he shouted as he squatted down beside Junior and reached out a cautious finger, “Hey, guys! I don’t think he’s really that bad! Right? Whattdya think? Guys?”

When no one answered or came running his way, Tucker shrugged and dropped down to the floor to sit by Junior. 

He never thought there was anything fatherly among his various instincts, but he felt almost overwhelmed by the need to touch and feel his child’s skin for himself. As he did so, Junior rolled onto his back and stretched and curled accordingly, his jaws working at a fever pitch to coo and vibrate in response. 

“Maybe it’s this new parental instincts kinda thing, but I think you might be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” Tucker said out loud, scratching his fingers against Tucker’s scaly skin. He paused and looked around. “What the… where did _that_ come from?” he wondered out loud. “I uhh… don’t mean cute. You’re not cute. You’re _handsome._ You’re a little ladykiller is what you are. Because you’re a Tucker, right?”

Junior gargled in response.

“Hell yeah you are,” Tucker grinned ear to ear before quickening the pace of his scratching fingers. “I also bet no one’s gotten you to laugh like your dad can make you laugh yet, have they?” 

Almost immediately, the tiny alien began chortling and squirming in response, his dark eyes closing tight as he squirmed and batted back at Tucker’s hands.

“C’mon, li’l guy! C’mon, gimme a laugh and smile!” Tucker whispered as he leaned over his son and began to laugh himself. “C’mon! C’mon– OW!” He looked to his hand that Junior’s toothy mandibles were wrapped around. “Oh… yeah, alright. Daddy deserves that one.”


	72. Tucker & Church: Blue & Order

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a world where everyone's part of the same precinct, Tucker and Church lose their undercover case...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from powerfulpomegrante! I used her awesome Law & Order AU she's does some amazing fanart for : )

Tucker flicked the rubber band across their desks and watched with mild pleasure as Caboose was hit square between the eyes. The lumbering man nearly dropped his coffee – which was fine by Tucker. There was a reason they didn’t let him drink coffee. 

Caboose with caffeine was _hell._

Church looked over his stacks of paperwork, eyes narrowed, and pointed at Tucker angrily. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?” Tucker asked with feigned innocence. 

“Shut up and _stop it,”_ Church snapped. “I have way too much shit I have to fill out already, I don’t need to fill out an accident report because you two can’t take your hands off each other.”

“Bow chicka– Wait, are you talking about Caboose or your ex-girlfriend?” Tucker asked.

Church’s pencil snapped in his hands and he quickly rose to his feet. “That’s it! I’m killing you right now – won’t take morning shift long to solve _this_ one!!!”

Tucker barely had time to respond when the sergeant’s office door flung open and, judging by the heigh his foot was at, probably did so because it was forcefully kicked by the old man.

“Oh, fucking great,” Church growled, slamming his hands on the desk. “What’s _this_ about now!?”

“I just talked to the judge!” the old man howled, marching over to their desks with his hands proudly at his hips. “You two got your subpoena!”

Looking at each other, Church and Tucker exchanged worried glances before looking back at Sarge. “That’s… good?” Tucker asked warily.

“So we’re _not_ going undercover at the maniac’s bar tonight? Fine by me,” Church shrugged before getting cut off by Sarge’s sharp toothed grin. “What’s _that_ face for…?”

“While you two are playing I Spy over in Dorokhov’s apartment tonight, I’ll be sending a more suited man to be undercover at the club!” Sarge announced.

“More suited?” Church questioned before following Sarge’s gaze over Caboose, who was using his tie to fail at cleaning the coffee stain on his shirt. He glared back at Sarge. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Do I _look_ like I’m kiddin’, son?” Sarge asked, squinting back at Church.

“Sarge, Caboose is a fucking idiot,” Tucker argued. “He’ll blow his cover _and_ ours!”

“Nonsense! He looks like a perfect bouncer!” Sarge said proudly. “As opposed to your two scrawny asses. You don’t look like you could bounce a penny off of the finest stripper’s patootie in the world.”

Church scowled. “Gee. Thanks for the consideration, Sarge.”

Tucker looked at his pipes. “Whaaat? Sarge, I’ve been working out and everything–”

“Forget it, numbnuts!” Sarge snapped. “You two get to that apartment. I’ll have Grif and Simmons set up Caboose with all the right connections.”

Glowering, Church crossed his arms. “This is going to be a disaster.”

Tucker groaned. “Tell me about it. I even got a fake tattoo for this.”


	73. Felix & Locus: Mercs and Explosions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix seems certain that he kept Locus waiting for a good reason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from asleeponabench!

Locus didn’t use the radio in the field. 

He didn’t have a need for it – if they executed everything _exactly_ as they were directed, if they both followed every _precise_ plan, _if_ Felix kept it under control – there was no need for the radio in the field. 

It was a weakness, relying on radio contact with his partner. A weakness Locus quite frankly refused to have. 

They were the best. He trusted Felix to do exactly what he said _when_ they agreed on doing it. 

But the timer was ticking down, and as clear as Locus field of vision was – free of any security personnel or bystanders he hadn’t taken out himself – there was still no signs of Felix.

He ground his teeth and waited, trigger finger itching at his gun. 

“Where _is_ he,” Locus growled out to himself.

Patience, after all, was _not_ one of his personal virtues.

No sooner had his levels of irritation threatened to rise again, Felix’s familiar black and orange armor dipped into his field of vision, dropping from one of the upper floors of a nearby building.

When he stood up, Felix feigned dusting off his shoulders and strolled smoothly toward Locus’ position, apparently ignoring the tremor of anger flowing through his partner.

“Howdy there,” Felix joked. “Miss me much?”

“You are _late,”_ Locus snapped.

“Oh, I am not. I’m being fashionable,” Felix replied with a snap of his wrist. He turned to face the same direction as Locus and backed up to Locus’ side, swelling with what Locus could only assume was pride. “Besides. I got you something you’d like.”

“I _doubt_ it,” Locus responded in a low grind.

Felix just gave a toothy grin before pulling up his wrist and tapping away at some controls that were unfamiliar with Locus. “See, I was thinking about how that so-called business guru was going to want us to report in with just how we made sure the competition was going to suffer a _severe_ loss in their newest investment this quarter. And I was thinking about how much I _love_ stories and how _good_ I am at telling them…”

“Get to the point,” Locus ordered.

“And _then_ I realized… hey. You know what this story _really_ needs to sell our new employer on our work?” Felix asked before tilting his head toward Locus. He mashed down on his wrist.

Immediately the building before them let out a low whine, a tremor breaking out across all the visible windows of the floor Felix had jumped from just before a blast of fire and smoke tore through the floor, spiraling upward. It wasn’t long until the floor above was also becoming engulfed. 

“An explosion!” Felix cackled. “Every story needs an explosion, Locus, c’mon!”

Rolling his eyes, Locus turned to head back to their transport.

“Oh, you’ve lost your sense of fun,” Felix sighed as he followed suit.


	74. Tucker: Ghosts of Themselves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Tucker leaves Blood Gulch, there's something he has to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from 100wordsummaries: Omg. Can I ask for the prompt "Boo" woth Tucker and Church? Either as friendship or more. (By the way, new fan. Found you after a friend sent me a link to Hero Time. I'm a professional script writer and I LOVE your writing. Recovery is an awesome take on the universe and Hero Time is an amazing AU. Can't wait for the updates!)
> 
> Thank you SOOOOOO much for your kind words and for this really cool prompt. I hope you enjoyed the outcome : )

Tucker didn’t think he’d miss sunsets. Tucker didn’t think he’d ever _think_ about sunsets, in all honesty, but he found himself doing a lot of crazy shit in Blood Gulch where the days turned in on each other without a sign. 

He sat on the roof of Blue Base, resisting the urge to go back inside, find Caboose, spy on the Reds, make up any of the usual excuses for wasting their endless amount of time in the box canyon.

After a short investigation from “Command”–

(”Command? There is no Command! There’s no Red or Blue–”

“Tucker, be quiet. How many times do I have to tell you that’s not true– You know what? Nevermind, I’m done arguing this.”)

–Caboose, Church, and himself were reassigned across the planet from each other. Or, in Tucker’s case, hardly assigned anywhere at all. His son was safe, but at the cost that Command knew about them. And Command had expectations about what they wanted to do with that information. 

He was expected to join his son as an ambassador between their species. Tucker started training at the end of the week. 

And there was a ship on the way to get him as he sat there and waited.

The beers were getting warm by his side, but Tucker sat beside them unmoving. Determined to wait it out, and hold a grudge for the rest of his life if it didn’t work out.

When the glowing visage of his friend appeared beside him, Tucker didn’t even blink.

“Boo,” Church said, his ghostly looking self dropping down to sit by Tucker. He also looked out across the canyon. “Nice view.”

Tucker snorted, reached down and popped open the first can. “No it isn’t,” he said as he lifted it up for a drink. “You already can’t drink with me, was it necessary to do the whole _ghost_ thing to prove a point?”

“Shut up, smart ass,” Church responded, his head tilting toward Tucker. “My body’s sitting in the shade with Caboose while he’s going on about nonsense. _I_ am doing you a huge fucking favor. A few moments of peace without Caboose.”

“Oh, like the year before he arrived here,” Tucker snickered. “Great. I’ll go get my standard armor again and we’ll just bitch at each other the whole time because we’re so bored…” he paused, thought of his son, thought of their adventures, looked to his friend. “Hey… a lot of shit happened because Caboose came and messed up the peace, huh?”

Church hummed to himself. “I don’t know. I think I’m pretty important in all the junk that went down, too. I mean… it’s _my_ girlfriend–”

“Ex-girlfriend, current babynapper,” Tucker corrected.

“Did a bunch of interesting junk, too,” he completed, looking down to his feet as they dangled over the edge of Blue Base. “Just so you know, I’m not getting mushy and saying goodbye or anything. I mean… _you’re_ the one who said yes to leaving first.”

“I know,” Tucker said, reaching for another beer and playfully dropping it in Church’s lap. There was an amusing thunk as it went through Church and rolled off the edge. “I know.”


	75. Doyle & Lopez: Spooky Robots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doyle isn't sure what to make of Lopez's habit of popping up everywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from comicsandslushies!

The weeks that followed the arrival of the Reds and Blues were fraught with friction. 

In a sense, Doyle knew that it was to be expected, the things that the war heroes had lived through only to end up on their small planet with a whole other war outside of their concerns were not easy for the men to get over. But he hoped that his indisputable hospitality would be enough to win _some_ allegiances over.

Even if it had never quite been enough to win the likes of Locus.

What he wasn’t expecting was the challenges of pleasing a Spanish speaking robot.

Since bringing the saucy robot known as Lopez online, Doyle had hardly been able to turn a corner without the Reds’ precious teammate being there. Standing, waiting. _Staring._

And each time Doyle felt himself about to have a heart attack.

Turning to leave the war room, the robot was there. Turning to go down the hall for a midnight cup of water, the robot was there. Turning on his heels after finishing a small morning chat with Doctor Grey, _the robot was there._

And each time Doyle leaped in the air and dropped everything on his person in absolute fright.

The robot even showed up when the Reds and Blues _were not around_ and thus making his appearance at all highly suspect to the general. 

If Doyle didn’t know better, he would think that the robot was somehow getting _amusement_ out of his folly. 

And each time, the jump scare was met with the same comment. 

“Abucheo,” Lopez would say. 

And each time, Doyle would throw his arm over his eyes and cry back pleadingly, “I am so sorry, my robotic friend, but I do not _hablo Español!”_

To which a small cackle would come from the robot and he would walk off from wherever it was that he came.


	76. Tucker: Tucker Did It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tucker just wants to be left alone, but he might not be the only one who's a little angry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from littlefists!

Wash was scavenging again. For _what_ didn’t really concern Tucker all that much because it meant that once again he was left in charge of Caboose. 

And Caboose… 

Well, he was pretty much inconsolable these days. 

Angry at Church, angry at Carolina, angry at the Reds, and _god_ angry at Washington most of all, Tucker just wanted to lay in the dying grass of their crash site and watch the sky. 

There was a bit of a hysterical notion in the back of his head that Tucker had that if he just stared at the sky long enough, he could force it to start collapsing on him and at the very least give him an end to sitting around bored in box canyons. 

Then a rock hit his helmet.

“Fuck! NO that’s not what I wanted!” he sputtered as he sat up quickly, ready to book it into the base for cover when he noticed the rock rolling by. 

Tucker stared at it before seeing another roll from the same direction.

Turning immediately, Tucker glared at the source and wasn’t even remotely surprised to see Caboose, shoulders slumped forward and head hanging exhaustedly, kicking rocks from the hill he was on.

“Caboose! What the fuck – _stop it!”_ Tucker ordered as he sat up more. “You’re kicking _me_ with those things–” another rock hit his face. “Caboose!”

“No my fault,” Caboose said tiredly, “Tucker did it.”

“Tucker _did_ not do it,” Tucker growled back. “You wanna know how I know? _Because I’m fucking Tucker, Caboose._ This is _your_ fault.”

Looking up finally, Caboose stopped kicking and just _stared_ holes into Tucker. His hands closed into fists. Which was enough to make Tucker worriedly flinch back – no one ever wanted to be on the other side of an angry Caboose. 

“It is _not_ my fault Church is gone!” Caboose yelled.

Tucker’s mouth opened and closed a little in shock. He stared back at Caboose before digging his own fingers into the dirt.

“Are you saying it’s _my_ fault?” Tucker demanded.

Caboose just stared back, then kicked another rock.

“I hate you,” Tucker snapped.

“You are not very nice like that,” Caboose sniffed haughtily back. “I am not surprised.”

When Wash separated the all out brawl between them later, neither had a real good answer for how it started. 


	77. Caboose Siblings: Things That Go Boom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Niner Caboose] Andromeda and Mikey have fixations on different things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from goodluckdetective  
> Niner Caboose headcanon is hers : )

Before she was Niner, she answered to Andromeda. 

And before she was a pilot, there was a part of her that felt that her parents had been particularly cruel in giving her that name, because the voyage that brought them to the moon when she was a baby had been her last, despite all her fierce protest that it shouldn’t have been.

Instead, as a teen who should have known better, Andromeda found herself encouraging her brother rather than stopping him when she found him with cans of gasoline, a former moon scooter, and a spark in his eyes.

“What are you going to do when you can fly away?” Michael asked as he worked tirelessly on the vehicle. 

Laid across the hood of the car, ignoring the itch on her neck that the space suits never let them scratch in a satisfying way, Andromeda shrugged. 

“Flying away should be enough,” she reasoned to him. 

“Oh,” he said back before continuing to work. “I guess I’ll find another car.”

She let the statement roll around in her head a few times before she turned to her side and looked casually down at her young brother. He was already a bit uncomfortably tight in the hand-me-down oxygen suit. He was growing like a tree. 

“Why would you do that?” she finally asked back.

He looked up to her, fumbling with the tools that he so naturally tinkered with from even a young age. “So I can come too,” he answered.

“I want you to stay in school,” she said firmly back. “I want you to use all that natural gear-headedness of yours for something special.” She turned back onto her back and stared out into space – unsatisfied with how far those stars seemed from their moon. “You’re good at building things, Mikey. I’m good at driving them.”

“How do you know?” he asked. “You never drove anything.”

“I know because it’s all I’ve ever thought about,” she answered, holding her hands up and gripping a steering wheel that wasn’t there. “I can feel the throttle. And I can hear the engines. Hell, Mikey, when I close my eyes, just like this–” she did so “–I can _smell_ the fuel burning…”

She sniffed twice and opened her eyes. “I smell the fuel burning,” she said again before sitting up and whipping around to look at her brother. 

His bright eyes were trained on her, mesmerized by her words, when they should have been on the fuel tank he had been working around haphazardly. 

“Mikey!” she screamed out, moving more than thinking, as she grabbed her tiny brother and bolted for as much distance as possible before throwing herself over him. They rode out the shake of the half-assembled vehicle exploding, gripping onto each other.

When it all seemed over, she pushed herself up and flipped onto her butt, watching the flames lick the air and slowly begin retreading without more oxygen in the atmosphere around it. 

The skeleton of the would-be ship stood in ruin.

Beside her, Michael J. Caboose held up his stick arms and cheered, “Woo! Go again!”

She silenced him with a single glare.


	78. Washington & Tucker: Knocked Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wash wakes up, to Tucker's relief and amusement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from anonymous

When he opened his eyes, he genuinely thought the knocking was coming from inside of his skull. It was a moment before his lucidness, so he forgave himself fairly easily for the ridiculousness of his instinctive thought, but still he managed to be somewhat surprised when his eyes opened and there was a knuckle clanging against the visor of his helmet.

Washington took a breath, counted to five, and read the readout on his HUD before bothering to look back pretty angrily at the continued rapping against his helmet.

“Tucker,” he said finally.

His voice felt tight in his throat, whether it was from exhaustion or lack of use was hard to tell. He just was relieved that no matter how raspy or weak it was, his voice was still enough to make his teammate back off and return to looking at instead of touching his helmet.

“Holy shit, you’re not dead.”

“Correct,” Wash said back.

Tucker eased onto his haunches, still knelt by Wash’s side on the ground. He looked at Wash almost studiously, a comical sight in his own armor, then he looked out around them. 

They were in somewhere indoors – a warehouse? Some facility. There were storage rooms and a hallway and–

“Was I shot?” Wash asked. 

“Nah,” Tucker replied easily. He looked back at Washington and somewhat laughed. “It was–”

“Caboose, I remember,” Wash said, turning his gaze easily back to the ceiling above them. The lights were still bright, meaning they had managed to stop the pirates from completely disassembling the power core. Which meant they could get more information from the docking computers. 

It was a job Wash usually handled himself, but under the circumstances…

“Man, he _nailed_ you,” Tucker laughed. 

“I should have seen it coming,” Wash sighed. “He was… excited.”

“I thought those new meds were supposed to calm him down.”

“Help him _focus_ ,” Washington corrected. “The excitement and… disturbing amount of force he can produce are just… part of what makes him Caboose. No need to mess with those things.”

“Except when they knock out a commanding officer,” Tucker reminded Washington.

“Yes… well, that’s true.”

Tucker seemed to give up on his more prepared stance and dropped into a sitting position. He followed Wash’s gaze to the ceiling. The laugh in his breath was so distinct that Wash could almost see the shit eating grin under his armor. 

“When are you going to give up on your pride and ask me to help you up?” Tucker asked. 

“Give it a few minutes, Captain Tucker. Give it a few minutes.”


	79. Blues: Humiliation by the Cent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carolina and Wash are preparing for a display of combat skills and Tucker wants things to go an unexpected way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from Saintash!

Carolina’s stretches were methodical and taking painstakingly long, but she knew better than to test the repairs to her leg so soon after Grey patched her up. 

That was not a woman Carolina felt particularly inclined to mess with. Especially not when she was about to spar with Washington in front of the Chorus soldiers for combat training. 

It was about halfway through her squats that she became acutely aware that she wasn’t the only aqua space marine around. She looked over her shoulder and raised a brow at Tucker standing in the hallway.

“Are you watching my ass, captain?” she asked only halfway to angry. 

“Well, I’m not _not_ watching, but it’s not why I’m here either,” he explained as he walked over to the training mat. He then pulled out what _looked_ like three fifties and waved them at her. “So… about that fight later…”

Narrowing her eyes, Carolina stood back up and crossed her arms. “Are you trying to pay me to take a _dive?”_ she snapped. 

Looking offended at the suggestion, Tucker threw a hand over his heart. “I would _never!”_ he said. “I’m paying you to make it _extra humiliating_ when you win.”

She wiggled her fingers and looked at Tucker warily. “You want me to completely annihilate your C.O. in front of you and your peers,” she clarified. 

“You underestimate how many leg days I suffered at the crash site,” he said back.

Carolina grabbed the money.  


	80. Tucker & Washington: Boo, Motherfucker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tucker asked Wash to give the story to him straight. Wash still isn't certain that was a good idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from Hinn_Raven!

Tucker stared for a moment, like he was collecting himself.

If Wash hadn’t spent the last several months leading Blue Team, he might have even thought that himself. 

Instead, Wash had gotten very good at reading Tucker and he _knew_ that the sim trooper was boiling with rage instead of something productive like self reflection.

And after the story Wash had just finished telling him, the Freelancer couldn’t at all blame him. 

“I’m sorry,” Wash said, his guts twisted with how much he _truly_ meant it. “But… you wanted to know and… that’s how it happened. How the Alpha–”

“Church,” Tucker corrected, still refusing to make eye contact. “At _least_ call him Church.”

Washington nodded. “Church.”

Biting his lip, Tucker seemed to be keeping something back – some primal scream or a well deserved outburst of anger. His nostrils flared with each breath and then –

He laughed.

Tucker laughed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Heh. Goddammit, Church.” He wheezed. His eyes finally made it back to Wash’s very confused face. “ _Boo, motherfucker._ Like, _really?”_

Taken aback, Wash ended up giving a strained laugh of his own. “Yeah. Really.”

“Such… such a dork,” Tucker half snorted, half sniffed into his hand. “God, I’m so glad he was a prick to the very end. Fuck, I’m going to miss him.”

“Yeah,” Wash replied, knowing there wasn’t any additional comfort to give.


	81. Chex: When She Comes Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Church wasn't expecting to see her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from taibangs

It was mostly a surprise when she showed up on his doorstep. There wasn’t much time to process anything else.

There had been some finality to watching her leave the time before. 

He didn’t remember the details of how or why – maybe there had been a fight, maybe he had expected her to die like so many soldiers did, maybe he had come to terms with the idea that what love they had couldn’t diminish what a hateful, ugly beast they became when they forced themselves back together.

Maybe it was a force beyond Church’s comprehension all together.

Maybe.

But there she was again. Home. _Again._

She had a bag over her shoulder, army issued jacket on her shoulders, and a hat with Texas embroidered across the top.

She looked to the driveway then back to him.

“Company?” she asked.

Stiffly, he shook his head. “Roommate,” he corrected. “You’re… done with your tour?”

“Disappointed?” she asked, smiling but face strangely devoid of humor at the same time. She had the thousand yard stare down to an art.

Maybe that had been the source of the fight. Church vaguely recalled being tired of being stared through, like he wasn’t even there. 

“What’s her name?” Tex asked. “Your roommate.”

Church blinked a few times before comprehending the accusation. 

“Caboose,” he answered. “ _His_ name’s Caboose.”

She nodded, accepting that. 

“Well,” she responded at last. “Are you going to welcome me home?”

“Yeah, sure thing,” he said, opening the door to their house more and letting her back in. “Welcome home.”


	82. Yorkalina: Settling In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Yorkalina] Delta questions York's newest accommodations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from Hinn_Raven!

He took off his helmet and dropped it to the cracked floor. His head swiveled around as he took in all the sights around him.

There wasn’t much to the apartment. It had a fan, which was about as much as he could ask for given the continuing heat on Freelancer’s dinky inherited colony.

Delta appeared by his shoulder, constant companion that he was, and made a real show of looking around the place. Like the HUD readout and York’s own point of view weren’t the AI’s frame of reference. 

“What?” York pressed the moment he knew Delta was holding back. 

“Is this _all,_ York?” Delta asked.

Taking a breath, York looked around it again. 

There wasn’t much room for improvement. There wasn’t really a hopeful sight to be seen in the whole four corners of the room.

It was dingy and barren.

No place for personalization. 

There was no room to build a shrine to memories of her. No mirrors to catch him off guard where in the corner of his eye he could see the rare ghost of the smile she used to bring to his face. 

No more radios where he could endlessly waste his days. 

Waiting. Listening. Hoping for her.

York was tired. Too tired to wait anymore for Carolina. 

“This is it,” he said back to Delta finally. “Welcome home.


	83. Carolina: To Mourn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carolina shouldn't be feeling this way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompt from tumblr!

It felt like a gust of wind swept through her, chilled her to her bones, etched into her very broken heart.

She hated it.

If she had ever been allowed to be normal, she might’ve hated it for making her hurt, but Carolina knew herself to be a cruel and calculated soldier. And because of that firm knowledge she knew she truly hated her weakness for letting her feel anything at all.

Not for him. Not when the loss of so many others, when so many so many more deserving, only left her _empty._

She sat on the overlook of Blue Base, watching the morons she had come to live with run around and be joyful, carefree, and _happy_ at the turnout. All while she remained frozen to her spot. 

She envied them so much. And only days beforehand, as they searched desperately for the Director, she couldn’t have been more ready to never see them again.

Epsilon appeared over her shoulder – quiet and reluctant. 

He had responded to the Director’s death the way they both should have. With finality and relief.

And anger toward her for having anything beyond that. 

“He wasn’t a good man in any sense of the word,” Epsilon reminded her.

She agreed. And she didn’t.

“I know that,” Carolina hissed back. “No one knows that more than me.”

The AI kept quiet for a moment, watching over Wash and the Sim Troopers with her. He took an exaggerated breath and looked back to her. “But he was still your father. So… don’t beat yourself up over mourning him. Anyone human would.”

“Yeah?” she asked, not even slightly convinced.

“Absolutely,” Epsilon replied softly.

And considering how much Epsilon hated him, to hear such a thing from him did help. Just the tiniest bit.


	84. Epsilon & Washington: Another Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epsilon doesn't know what to say to Washington.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous prompt from tumblr!

He wasn’t expecting anyone to be up, least of all Washington.

There still existed an uncomfortable silence between them of Epsilon’s own making. The kind that left one winded and aching as if stretched.

Those who were aware of it – and there were few who couldn’t be fully aware of that awkwardness – seemed to always urge Epsilon to do something about ending it. None more so than Carolina herself.

And that woman did _not_ know how to take no as an answer.

So much like her mother in that way.

Even at her urging, though, Epsilon felt himself seizing up as Wash approached the computer he was working from. 

There was a coffee in Wash’s hands, steaming still, as he stood by and looked over to the screens. There was a certain tightness to the air around Wash even as he casually took a drink.

The pressure kept mounting, at least a dozen voices in Epsilon’s head urging him to say _something._

Which was unfortunate because Church’s gut instincts were still those of an utter asshole.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed or something? Or is that too normal for you?” 

_Fuck._

Washington raised his brows and sipped from his mug again. “I’m having trouble,” he said as he lowered his drink. “With sleeping, that is.” His gaze returned to the screen. “You’re the only other one up.”

“Oh,” Epsilon replied.

He could feel the awkward silence returning in his nonexistent chest when Wash coughed into his fist. 

“Anything I can do to help?” he asked, though it was a mystery to Epsilon how genuine of an offer it was.

“Not really,” Epsilon replied too quickly. Then, just as fast, added, “Just… uh… company. If you’re up for it.”

Wash took a heralding breath and shook his head. “Maybe another day.”

“Yeah, okay,” Epsilon returned.

And, just maybe, another day he could figure out how to say he was sorry.


	85. Washington: Her(Its) Fault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Washington struggles in the sickbay after being implanted with Epsilon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from 100wordsummaries

His head was swelling with the information.

He felt like a child at the beach who filled a sandwich back with so much sand it couldn’t close any longer. Until the sand was emptying, escaping from every available crevice.

Washington had never thought that memory could hurt _so much, so dearly._

The thought of her was painful, the knowledge that she was gone, the certain cold possessiveness that made it clear no lust or longing for her would ever truly make her come back. Or, worse, to come back whole.

What struck even more of a nerve, if possible, was the _her_ who was not a memory but a gaping hole in his side. 

The piece of him that had been chipped off of him and left him broken bad bleeding without it – her, _it._

 _“_ No. _Not_ me,” he gritted through his teeth, trying to keep the memories as straight as possible.

He didn’t have something pulled and shattered from his existence – that was the AI burrowing secrets deep inside his head. And even then it felt like it wasn’t even _it._

Wash demanded no lights in the room as he thrashed and struggled on the sickbay bed. He couldn’t stand any additional lights and sounds – not when his nostrils filled with poppy seeds he’d never seen or his ears rang with champagne toasts he’d never once given.

Only once did he dare to open his eyes, and it was then that he saw her. 

She stood fully in her black armor outside the window. She was looking at him – _them_ – and even if there wasn’t an expression to be seen, Wash could tell that _somehow_ she knew. 

And for the first time since the screaming AI came into his head, Wash could feel a rage that was completely his own. 

“This is _your_ fault,” he spat viciously at her.

Almost instantaneously the AI swarmed angrily to her defense in Wash’s own brain. 

It didn’t matter. That was the problem.

Wash _knew._ And he never wanted to.


	86. Yorkalina: What Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Yorkalina] What didn't happen is...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous prompt from tumblr

What didn’t happen is

She sees the truth in his words. Her own aggression toward the system that’s divided them eeps through, and her judgment, while clouded, leads to her lowering her weapons, leads to her giving her hand.

He is relieved. He takes that hand.

They leave. Together. 

There’s North waiting, and maybe he has his sister, too. With as many of them banded together as they are, they can still grab Wash. They can still wait on the Alpha to be whole. Tex can make her own decisions on what to do with him from there.

Freelancer doesn’t stand a chance. Not with their evidence, not with their united testimony. 

It’s a lengthy process. There’s a lot of string to untangle, but there’s a promise that keeps the two of them sane even as it goes on. One that doesn’t break even under the pressure mounting, even as they all must spend time behind bars until things are clear.

There is a settlement. There is a sentencing for the people who had wronged them. 

He holds her hand all the way through it all. Even when she feels like she shouldn’t need it. 

And when it’s over, they can settle. They can have a life. 

It’s not one that maybe they deserve, but there is a child with bright green eyes that make them want to feel that they do. 

There’s a way that one hand fits into the other like it’s never meant to be a lone.

It could have happened. It could be what is happening still.

But it isn’t. And maybe she can someday not feel guilty that she’s maybe just as happy with the life she has today instead. 


	87. Tucker: A Man Without Honor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tucker's first day as a Sangheili Ambassador could be going better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: ( anonymous ) could you write a humor piece about tucker raising junior from a sangheili pov?
> 
> A/N: So I’m really excited about filling this one in particular because it’s really a challenge. I’m going to lean heavily on what I do know of Halo lore – which is hilariously mostly from guidebooks, the comics, and the anime shorts which I may or may not own and have watched multiple times – but not feel the need to be totally Halo stringent considering it’s, y’know, RvB and full of Honks and Blarghs at the end of the day.

The one who had been chosen by the Key, the one who bore their religious icon, the one who was an ambassador to their people, was really something of a tool. 

“No one told me there were women Sangheili,” Lavernius Tucker professed in complete astonishment upon meeting one of their female magistrates. “What the fuck. What’s with the whole parasitic embryo thing?”

They glanced to each other and hummed in tongues about the unique circumstances that had led to the inception of a human-born Sangheili savior. 

And also how the guardsman who had set out on the quest which led to the present situation was something of a tool himself. 

The human stared at them uncomfortably before letting out a nervous laugh and looking toward his progeny. The child leaned toward him and let out a series of low whispers to catch his father up on the gossip.

Their savior was a good child. His loyalties were questionable though. 

Tucker looked to their magistrate again and said. “So… should I apologize for pointing out that you’re a chick or something?”

It was then that their savior committed a very human action in which he slammed his palm against his face at full force and released a long series of aggravated clicks from his mandibles. 

Some of their more devoted guards also committed the action in hopes of finding their own enlightenment.

The magistrate carefully chose her words. And did so by ignoring a potential disaster and avoided the topic of the Key bearer’s insolent comment entirely. “We are… _honored_ to have you,” she said with a bow.

The man stared at her, baffled as the rest of the people bowed other than him and his son. Tucker looked worriedly at Junior. 

Tugging on his father’s hand, Junior led his father to also give a small and insufficient bow to the magistrate. Immediately, the standing guard were on edge as they glared at the key bearer. 

“So uhhh do you have plans for dinner?” Tucker asked.

The magistrate blinked as she rose to her feet and looked down at him. “Is this… what you humans refer to as a date?”

“Oh god, _is it?”_ he asked, a worried expression crossing him.

“The one who bares our people’s Key, who births our religious icon… he is not one who can date,” she continued to explain as diplomatically as possible.

Tucker blinked at her. 

They all stood quietly as they processed the information before Tucker held up a hand. 

“Yeah, no thanks,” he replied. “I’d much rather go on a date with you.”

The magistrate bristled. “Is the key bearer claiming to be a man of no honor?”

“Yes,” Tucker answered, causing gasps. “But wait, hear me out: how many honorable people get laid? Likes, literally nones of them. Because they’re like chaste and shit. I ain’t about that. I got this super prophecy sword, and I know how to use it.”

Junior nodded. “Bow chicka honk honk!”

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Tucker cooed before crossing his arms and nodding. 

The Sangheili stared at him, more than unimpressed. More _livid_ than anything else. 

“Hmm,” Tucker continued. “I’m starting to think my reassignment wasn’t such a hot idea.”


	88. Caboose: Pride and Joy of Blue Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caboose comes to an understanding about Junior

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: ( @comfycozysweaters ) fluff prompt: Caboose may hate babies but Junior isn’t really a baby, is he?
> 
> A/N: Caboose and Junior need more time together is what writing this taught me.

There was a bit of desperation in Tucker’s voice as he held up the tiny gray scaled baby and pushed him toward Caboose’s chest. “C’mon, man,” he whined, “I _really_ need you to watch him for just a second!”

Caboose stared back and pulled at the corners of his helmet. 

Tucker groaned and lowered his head. “You have no idea how much it pained me to even _say_ that, Caboose. So just drop the lead out and take your turn watching Junior! He’s just a baby!”

Feeling himself grow slightly flush, Caboose sputtered back, “I do not like babies, Tucker!”

“He’s _my_ baby, though! That makes him totally our shared responsibility!” Tucker snapped back.

“That’s not how parenting works, jackass!” Church’s voice carried from the far corners of Blue Base. 

“Shut up, Church! All of this is your fault for refusing to take a turn!” Tucker yelled back.

The entire time his teammates bickered, Caboose kept his gaze locked on the dark eyed baby reaching sticky, grabby fingers at him. It made Caboose feel slightly ill to have a baby reach for him.

What did the baby even _want_ from him? He had very few things to give. Except a gun and the crayons stuffed in his gun. And those were not things Caboose felt comfortable letting a baby have.

Babies were notorious for not giving things back.

“Tucker, I don’t want to,” Caboose complained in a small whine. 

“Well, tough titties, Caboose,” Tucker said before pushing Junior into Caboose’s arms. “Besides. Junior’s not a regular baby. He doesn’t cry or complain or any of that other baby shit. He’s totally cool. Coolest baby ever.”

Caboose shifted the child uncomfortably in his arms and looked worriedly to Tucker. “Can he be a cool something that’s _not_ a baby?” he begged. “Like a transformer.”

Obviously frustrated and _done_ with the conversation, Tucker groaned and shook his head. “You know what? Fine. You’re right, Caboose! Junior’s not a baby anymore. He’s a dinosaur. So go play dinosaur games or whatever the shit with him. I have to start packing for Junior and mine’s reassignment.”

Caboose blinked and looked down to the tiny dinosaur in his arms. 

“I have never met a dinosaur before,” Caboose announced in awe.

“Yeah, it’s fantastic, have fun – _don’t let anyone fucking kidnap him again!”_ Tucker demanded as he walked toward his room.

Junior honked and waved at Caboose’s face, batting the screen of Caboose’s visor playfully.

Shaking with mounting energy, Caboose quickly held Junior as high up into the air as he could and screamed out, “I WILL CHERISH YOU FOREVER, DINOSAUR JUNIOR!”

“Just keep clear of any astroids or Ice Ages!” Church sang from his end of the base again.


	89. Tucker & Santa: Observations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Santa watches Tucker wait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: ( anonymous ) can you do a fluff piece of tucker reuniting with his son from santa’s pov?
> 
> A/N: I am getting so much Tucker and Junior fluff in this angst war, I hope my reputation for loving them is well earned!!

The arrival of foreign ships is something he documents, as he has always documented. There are thousands of years of records of such landings in his database. He knows them backwards and forwards and offers to produce them to many worthy vessels.

The Reds and Blues have no interests in his records, however. They have little interest in anything other than what the current arriving ships might have in their cargo.

Santa usually placates them with simple answers: ships which carry medical supplies, or food -- ships that carry high profile passengers -- those with soldiers and armaments.

There are an array of reactions to each supply drop. The people of Chorus seem overwhelmed with anything from the UNSC, but the former Freelancer soldiers all seem unimpressed with the arrivals.

Tucker -- the barer of the key, a supposed champion -- isn’t interested in UNSC at all.

The aqua colored space marine arrives at his usual time and looks over Santa’s docking bay before crossing his arms and waiting. “How about now?”

“You still have never clarified what class of vessel I should be looking for,” Santa reminds him.

“I keep telling you, dude, I can’t pronounce that shit! Not correctly anyway. Just. It’s... y’know. different. You’ll know it when you see it,” he seems so self assured he even gives a waving hand motion. 

Santa things that, for once, he is receiving too much credit from the human. 

The soldier waits around, bored and listless, occasionally playing with his plasma sword, until Santa bores of observing him and returns full focus to the stars over Chorus. Waiting patiently for whatever it is that he’ll know once he sees it. 

And then it’s there. 

It’s a distant blurb at first. Like any ship -- and there have been many, _many_ ships over the recent days. But it is different in its arrival. He senses it.

Much like the technology of his people, Santa can lock onto ancient rhyme and verse, the sort of eloquent rhythm and sensory that human technology to Santa’s knowledge still lacks. 

It is Sangheili. It is _divine._

“Lavernius Tucker,” Santa beckons in his booming voice. 

Tucker pauses mid swing and looks back. “What?”

“Your ship,” Santa continues. “It has arrived.”

He watches the man sway for a moment then stop entirely. He looks up to the skies, and though Santa knows for a fact the ship is too far for Tucker’s blind eye to see anything more than a wisp of hope, tears begin to build. 

“He’s finally home,” Tucker whispers. 


	90. Carolina & Washington: A Special Tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carolina and Wash are traveling Chorus to investigate what remains of the mystery towers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: ( anonymous ) For the fluff war, how about a genfic where Wash discovers the Temple of Cats on Chorus?
> 
> A/N: I took a good look at this prompt and was just like “yes. yes this is a thing that must be brought to this world whether it’s me doing it or not.”

Relaxing isn’t a word Wash really uses to describe himself or Carolina anymore – and if he’s completely honest with himself, he doesn’t think he’s _ever_ used it to really describe _her –_ but this trip it’s…

It’s mostly that.

He feels, for the first time in years, relaxed. 

And he tries to beat down that gnawing feeling that it’s a _bad_ thing to be so relaxed when sharing a journey in single Warthog with one of his few dear friends. Knowing that the UNSC has control of Chorus and its people, that the Reds and Blues are provided for and happily adventuring on their own destination.

Because if there’s a time to relax, it _should_ be now. And that’s how he justifies it.

Carolina checks the map again then looks to the road. “How many more of these do we have left?”

Wash hums slightly and looks to the clipboard he’s taken to keeping over his knee. “Well, if Tucker and Caboose hit theirs this morning and the Reds are… _remotely_ on schedule for once, this one will be the third from last one.”

“Let’s hope this tower is a little more useful,” Carolina says decidedly 

Which wouldn’t be hard, but still, Wash feels the unusual need to provide sly comment. 

“I thought interior decorating was a _great_ use of a highly advanced civilization’s last gift to future generations of inhabitants,” he replies sardonically. 

“I think you should go back and stay at it with Doc and Donut then,” Carolina replies with some amount of mirth in her voice. 

“That’s tempting,” Wash says as he leans back into his seat. “I liked that couch.”

It had been a _fantastic_ couch.

They both grow silent again as they saw the tower in the distant. Like the others, it is activated, it’s energy sending out a signature rumble to the atmosphere around it, its moving parts lit in a spectacular array. But all the towers they came across had their quirks, and this one serves as no exception.

The rumbles are not a single frequency but a rotation of low and high rumbles, something that catches in Wash’s chest some as they come closer in their approach. The glow is also somewhat less predictable than others. While others grow and lessen in warmth, this is far more blinking and moving. The lights seem to move up and down – slow down then speed up. It’s rather unusual.

“Did Santa mention what this one is?” Carolina asks as they come impeccably close. 

Wash double checks his clipboard before shaking his head. “No, this is one of the mysteries.”

“Great,” Carolina says, stiffening up a bit and glancing back and forth to check her closest sidearms. “My favorite kind.”

Loading his weapons, Wash can’t seem to tear his eyes from the building. “Any bets on this one, Boss?”

“Temple of Disco,” she says almost too quickly to have not been on the tip of her tongue the entire time.

“Temple of Laser Light Orchestra,” Wash debates.

“You’re on,” she replies, pulling them to a stop a few yards away from the entrance. 

The temples, no matter their quirks, were laid out mostly the same. So far it seems that the Purge’s temple had been among the most unique as far as entrances had been concerned and even then it had a north and south entrance with levels. They didn’t get to see the insides – being rather busy _not dying_  at the time – but Wash and Carolina had been through enough mystery temples at that point to assume their way around.

They stay silent despite the general cheer between them. And despite the fact that there are genuine concerns for danger in this mission, as there always are with the mystery temples, there really isn’t a team outside of the Reds and Blues Wash would feel more comfortable with right then and there than with Carolina.

He actually tends to care a lot about her opinion on all this nonsense which is more than he can say for most people he interacts with regularly.

And is also why he really wishes she wasn’t there to watch him almost drop his weapons as they enter the central room.

“Wash!?” Carolina replies as she comes in just a step behind him and sees– “ _Cats?”_

Wash’s mouth works itself toward words without ever quite getting the pattern down right. He’s just– when’s the last time he was around cats? _Kittens?_

There is meowing and dinner plate sized eyes all turning on them as the purrs match in tone to the rumbles of their temple. What cats aren’t nearing the offering plates of what smells like chicken and tuna or walking towards Wash and Carolina with genuine curiosity, are racing around the several layers of cat sized stairs circling upwards, attempting to catch the pulsating lasers drawing their attention. 

“There’s a temple of cats?” Carolina demands, looking around aghast even as Santa projects above them. 

“Greetings, humans,” he says with a bow. “Welcome to the holiest of our temples.”

“You’ve gotta be–”

Carolina can’t even finish her thoughts because she’s too busy staring in horror at Wash when he drops to his knees and pulls the kittens pawing at his shins into his arms. 

“These aliens were an advanced, wise species, Carolina,” he reminds her as the cats begin to crawl over them. “Obviously we should follow in their example.”

She put her hands on her hips. “What?And bow to our feline overlords?”

“Maybe.”

“You traitor to humankind,” Carolina says.

Wash ignores her and lays in the sea of cats, immediately being covered up. “I can’t hear you. I’m too busy worshiping.”

 _Now_ Washington can officially consider himself relaxed and at peace. And when Carolina squats down next to him and reaches out toward her first cat, he calls _her_ relaxed, too.


	91. Carolina & Washington: Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [CarWash Siblings] Carolina's retrieval of Wash is different when there's a matter of family to account for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: ( @thepheonixqueen ) Fluff War prompt: Carwash siblings. Carolina reveals York is alive and introduces Wash to his niece/nephew. (York stayed home with the kid(s) and Delta)
> 
> A/N: Ngl if people mention stay at home dad York it basically summons me through a sigil.

How much the Reds and Blues understood about Carolina and Wash was largely up to interpretation. Caboose still considered them the Mom and Dad of Blue Team, which was slightly mortifying, and Tucker had made a habit of counting how long any hugs they gave each other lasted. 

“I’m telling you, she told me that she was _spoken for_ , so it _has_ to be someone we know,” Tucker had explained it.

Wash wasn’t so sure.

When Carolina found them, Wash still weak from his near death on Sidewinder, still winded and stricken by the betrayal and death of Maine, she had many goals. But she didn’t seem keen on sharing with her new company what exactly they were.

The simulation troopers she didn’t trust.

And Wash she seemed too worried about letting heal. 

“I’m taking you back,” Carolina informed him at last, sitting by his side in the medbay of some abandoned base they had found on their fruitless travels back to Valhalla. 

“How so?” Wash asked curiously, picking at the bandages around his torso. 

“What do you mean how so?” she said, chin lifting up in that defiant way it so often did when she didn’t like what as going on around her. “You’re my brother. You almost died out here with these baffoons. I’m taking you to my home base. You’ll be safe.”

“Technically I’m _alive_  because of these baffoons,” Wash corrected her and nodded toward the cobalt armor strewn across the floor. “Not to mention they were tending to these wounds long before you showed up.”

“I need you to come with me, Wash,” Carolina begged, grabbing his hand. “We need you.”

Immediately, the hairs on the back of Wash’s neck stood up. It almost made him sick to hear those words. 

He made a point of withdrawing his hands. There was a cold voice still echoing inside of his head thanks to _family_ and he had hoped that Carolina would have been different after so many years of having chosen her side. 

But she was fast and she wasted no time in grabbing his hand back. 

“Not the Director,” she said firmly. Not _Dad._ Not _our father._ There was a coldness to her tone that made it true for him.

“Then…”

Her fingers wrapped in his and she looked seriously into his eyes. “Wash… I took so long to do something – to find you… because I had a lot more to lose than I ever did before.”

Washington searched her face, eyes widening as he understood what she was saying. “You…”

“Two,” she replied. “Two years old and four months.”

Alarmed, Wash tried to raise out of his bed too soon, prompting a flinch and for Carolina’s free hand to gently push his shoulders back down. “That means I’m–”

“A monkey’s uncle,” she joked.

He stared at the ceiling. Families. Happiness. Kids with their green eyes still looking back. He could hardly imagine it. 

“And I only trust York with them as far as I can throw him,” Carolina continued, a gentle laugh in her voice. “Well… I trust Delta. But then I can’t throw him at all.”

It all clicking, Wash turned his head and stared at Carolina in surprise. “ _York!?”_ he coughed out. “He… He _promised_ me he wasn’t going to…” he glared back at the ceiling. “Everything on the _Mother of Invention_ was a rotten lie,” he decided. “At least now I know why I never found any trace of them.

“Because they knew I needed them,” Carolina said. “Because… I needed a family to support me when I found out about… the first time.” 

He looked at her and there was no doubt to the truth behind her eyes.

“I need my brother now, though,” she whispered to him. “I need _all_ my family. And I need it more than revenge or fear or _anything_ else.”

There was a pause as Wash’s brain tried to desperately return to function. “I’m an uncle.”

“You’re an uncle,” she agreed. 

There was calamity – crashing and yelling at Caboose, more than a few laughs, outside his door. Wash smirked at them fondly. 

“I want to meet them,” he told Carolina firmly. “I want to. I _will_ meet them. But I just need to make sure we’re both clear: I need my family, too. And it’s not just us anymore, Carolina.”

Worriedly, she glanced toward the door and back. “I’m used to it being the two of us, Wash. That’s a _lot_ of expansion to take in.”

He hardened his look over her. “More than the news of one of my best friends knocking you up _twice_ without telling me before now?” he ribbed.

Carolina laughed and rubbed at her face. “Okay… Well. Passover’s going to take a lot of brisket now.”

“Yeah,” he laughed back. “Yeah I guess it will.”

 


	92. Mainewash: So They Say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Fluff Week: MaineWash] Wash tries to be there for Maine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: ( anonymous ) Fluffwar anything with happy mainewash
> 
> A/N: So I took up this challenge because I always say that I’m willing to take almost any RvB pairing if prompted since there are very few that I have any problem with even if I don’t ship them. And MaineWash is one of those, so I’m doing this as a challenge to myself as much as anything else. Also… I’m doing it because I had five MaineWash prompts in my inbox, and really I don’t feel like filling that many for the pairing, so I figured this one is pretty all encompassing. I hope everyone who prompted the pairing for me enjoys!

Wash found himself staring at the mark a lot.

They were an odd bunch, the Freelancers. They almost had to be in order to be selected for the program. A certain pride and speciality in their fields that even other soldiers did not carry with them. 

So when their scars began to grow, none of them seemed to back away from letting them show. York even bragged about what a conversation starter his eye had become. 

Maine didn’t show much about his own.

He never hid it, but there wasn’t a same stony pride that the other Freelancers had with their scars. Maine’s were more extensive, his throat and face forever changed by the freeway incident.

But his eyes were soft. At least when they were looking back at Washington. 

Even though his brain knew better, Wash found himself rubbing at his own throat a lot as he stared. 

“Does it hurt still?” he finally found the gumption to ask. 

Maine stared back at him, soft eyes growing momentarily hard. But he didn’t rub at his scars or turn them away from Washington’s concerned gaze. 

He nodded instead.

“Maybe they’ll do something about that,” Wash continued, sitting on the floor by their bunks and looking up to where Maine sat. He pulled at his ear in that nervous way he always did. “I mean, along with the whole AI thing.”

With the mention of the implantation procedure, Maine reached back to run a hand along the back of his skull. He glanced away from Washington for the first time, deep in thought it seemed as he ran fingers over his implants. 

Wash resisted the instinct to mimic. 

“But… we don’t have to really think about any of that, not tonight anyway,” Wash offered with a shrug. “I mean, you’ll be off service for a while after it all and I won’t… so I’ll probably be away a lot while you’re bored, sitting around. Working out. Whatever you do when I’m not around to follow you like a kicked puppy.”

At that description of self depreciation, Maine looked onto Wash with some degree of bemusement. 

Which made it a little more surprising for Wash as Maine got to his feet without warning. 

“What’re–”

Maine sat back down on the floor, just inches from Washington, and looked into his eyes with quiet sincerity. If _looks_ could only tell _words,_ Wash imagined their conversations were endless. 

When Maine moved again, it was to firmly place a hand on Wash’s shoulder, gripping it tightly, and then leaning forward. Their foreheads touched and Wash felt the bristling of his hair against Maine’s shaved scalp. 

Wordless, Wash reached up with his hand and firmly put his hand on the back of Maine’s neck, holding him if not pulling the man closer. 

And though the solid actions were more than enough, Wash whispered, “I’m here for you, too.”


	93. Chex: Something Brought Us Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [RvB Angst War] Tex knows something. Church doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: ( @littlefists ) ANGST WAR ANGST WAR: Church and Tex and the line, “don’t you dare.” Whatever universe you like!
> 
> A/N: I think I’ll stick to canon-lite for this one. BECAUSE OH MAN if it isn’t obvious enough I’m a sucker for Chex.

“So… Gotta plan with O’Malley?”

The question was not really a question. And when Tex took pause and really looked at him, Church could clearly see that she was well aware of that fact. 

He didn’t know why he bothered beating around the bush when it came to Tex. She wasn’t like the guys – she knew him like an open book. Saw through the bullshit and lies and what not. 

“What suddenly has you interested?” she asked suspiciously, her fingers fiddled with the shotgun she had brought back with her from chasing after Wyoming. 

It had cost her a friend. Church knew she still wouldn’t talk about it.

“I can’t be interested in what we’re doing with the evil AI trying to possess everybody I know?” he asked back sharply.

“What do you want, Church?” she asked, exacerbated. 

While he was trying in the back of his mind to still be civil, his irritation and hair trigger temper were flaring beyond his control. Not that _Tex_ of all people had the right to judge people for the handling of a temper. 

“You know, you’re always trying to find my double meaning to phrases,” he accused right back.

“No, I’m always trying to find double meanings to _Tucker’s_ phrases,” she corrected. “ _You_ I know not to trust with this business at all.”

“ _What?”_ Church snapped back. “What the fuck, Tex!? What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

Her gaze on him was heavy, meaningful. So much conveyed even through suits of armor.

And Church couldn’t make sense of _any_ of it.

“Let’s just say that while we look for O’Malley, my eye’s going to know where to go first,” she said bitingly. “You’re changing, Church. You might not see it yet, but you are. And neither of us is ready for what that change’ll make of you.”

“What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?” he scoffed in return. 

“I said to drop it,” Tex snapped before beginning to turn away. “Now stop it, you’re wasting my time. I’ve got to get ready for O’Malley and–”

All at once, Church’s heart dropped. He felt his whole body seize up at the sight of her turning, of her leaving of her–

He grabbed her wrist and held more forcefully than he ever reasonably would have. It _was_ Tex, after all. No one could stop her. Not even him.

But he had to _try._

 _“Don’t,”_ he begged. “Don’t… don’t you dare leave me. Don’t walk away.”

She paused, which was odd. It was odd that she didn’t immediately turn around and wail on him, give him a good kick in the head. He might’ve deserved it at that rate – she had a point about the importance of getting ready for O’Malley.

“Don’t go where I can’t follow you, Tex,” he pressed. “No matter how this stuff with O’Malley turns out, I need you. Just you. The rest doesn’t matter.”

Tex sighed. “It _all_ matters, Church. That’s what you don’t get about yourself. You’re too _stubborn_ to get it.” Her head tilted just enough toward her shoulder for him to see the glint of her visor. “It’s not just me and you. It’s a team – hell, _two_ teams – in a canyon. And it’s every stray you pick up along the way. It was never going to be just me and you. You say it is, but that’s because you know that other people can hurt.”

“They can’t hurt as much as you walking away will,” he argued, her words only grazing the surface of his understanding. “Tex–”

“I don’t take jobs I can’t complete, and I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” Tex said, pulling her arm away at last. “If you don’t want me to walk away, I suggest you keep up.”

And he tried. 

And he couldn’t. 

_“Church, run!”_

_“Tex, don’t!”  
_

_“You have no idea how much trouble you are in…”_


	94. Tuckington: One Night in Sanghelios

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Tuckington] Tucker's welcoming ceremony might've been great, but he sure doesn't remember it.

It took a minute or two to clear the static in his head, but once he did, Tucker had to admit things made a _lot_ less sense. 

The sky he was looking up to was a dark backdrop to an explosion of colors and noise – something like fireworks, maybe a little more like aurora borealis. It was weird and alien, much like the languages sounding off around him. 

But it made a little more sense when he recognized some Sangheili being thrown around rather liberally and then remembered _oh right – the prophet’s homecoming._

Though, that did nothing to explain how he was pressed against the hard, protective metal of someone else’s armor plating or how there were arms supporting him rather unexpectedly. 

Until he saw Wash’s face looking down at him. 

“What the…” Tucker said, blinking and confused. He struggled but only partially, and Wash let him get up on his own, though a hand lingered on Tucker’s waist as if he was a toddler just learning how to walk. “Wash, what the fuck–”

“You told me you had handled alien brews before,” Wash said, almost disapprovingly. “You said you could handle your own. Now, _why_ I believed you is beyond me but–”

Tucker rubbed his head as he swayed. _There_ was the vertigo. It _was_ just like the last time a bunch of aliens welcomed him and Junior into their posse. 

“What happened?” he asked, which sounded a lot weaker out of his mouth than it had in his head.

Washington studied him like he was an animal at the zoo before tilting his head. “You took five shots in thirty minutes. Then you fainted… straight into my arms,” he informed Tucker with far more humor in his voice than what Tucker was used to.

“Oh my _god,”_ Tucker groaned, rubbing his face.

“You know, if you wanted my attention, you didn’t have to go to such extremes,” Wash laughed. “And there are _much_ better ways to endear me to you than force me to watch your drunk behind all night.”

“You love this,” Tucker said, covering his sensitive eyes with one hand while pointing at Wash with the other. “You love this blackmail and you _know_ it.

And the fact that Wash only replied with a dark smile told Tucker all he needed to know about whether or not this night would come up for the rest of his life. 


	95. Yorkalina: The Leaderboard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Yorkalina] New to Freelancer, Carolina takes in the leaderboard for the first time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from wash-baby

The leaderboard is… 

Well, it’s something. And considering that the nubile Project Freelancer has an entire division dedicated to their psychiatric health, Carolina blindly accepts that it’s for the better of building them as soldiers. Perhaps as a team. 

After all, if there are forty-nine operatives and they need a team of _maybe_ ten at the end of it all, logic dictates courses of action must be taken for the greater good. 

She’s not expecting anyone to come step up beside her and she gives the only familiar face from briefing today a considered look over. 

The man lets out a long whistle as he looks over the board. “Forty-nine agents, and I only see thirty slots on that board,” he says. “Wonder if the list’ll get even shorter. That’s rough.”

“Have to admit,” she says, bumping shoulders with him to elicit a more personal grin. “I was expecting a lot today. Not necessarily _you–”_

“I’m Agent New York,” he informs her. “That’s what they say to tell everyone, right? Our agent codenames.”

She looks at him fondly before nodding. “I’m Carolina.”

“Hey, that’s cheating,” he laughs, poking at her shoulder. “What if everyone starts going around calling me _York_. Think that suits me?”

“Nothing suits you,” she jokes back. 

They return to marveling at the list and he – _York_ – sighs a bit. “Well if they’re weeding people out, guess I’ll just have to stay at the top. Be safe and all that.”

“Oh, _you’re_ going to be at the top?” she asks. “Well, now that you’ve made it a competition…”

“Hey,” York says, turning his eyes on her, his look soft and warm in ways she hasn’t seen from anyone since the night in Errera. “I’m with _you_  here. Always.”

And she can’t help it. She believes him.


	96. Chex: Twenty Questions is a Dangerous Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Chex] Tex returns from her patrol none too happy with Church's most recent scheme

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from anonymous: Chex with "Before you decide to murder me, let me explain…”

He wasn’t sure what he expected when he stepped foot inside of his own base. After as much time as he had spent on Blue Team, Church knew he _probably_ should have just fully anticipated mortal peril around every _literal_ corner. But he didn’t.

Somehow Leonard Church managed to be mildly surprised for half a second as he reached to turn on the kitchen light only to feel the tip of cold metal against his neck and hear the cocking of a gun. 

“So I’m guessing you’re back from scouting the Reds’ territory,” he said a little ambivalently. 

“Don’t be coy,” Tex said back smoothly. Which wasn’t _yelling_ Tex yet so he took that as a positive. 

“Coy is officially removed from my dictionary,” he replied. 

Tex grabbed his shoulder and spun him around to face her. There was a certain objective coldness to Tex’s black armor, special ops intimidating as it was, but Tex really sold the attitude as she wore it, too. It was oozing with control issues and, well, Church hated to admit how much he enjoyed that. 

“You set me up,” she accused. 

Out of the moment entirely, Church blinked a few times before her words truly caught up with him. His head then tilted back. “Wait, _what?”_

“You sent me on a dummy mission just so that Tucker would have an opening to play twenty questions with me on the cliff!” she hissed. “You were using him to use _me_ to divulge important, sensitive information.”

And, well, there had been a fatal flaw to that plan from the beginning. Which was that Church had to have put _any_ amount of blind faith in one of his teammates, which should have told him from the get-go the likelihood for success. 

“Before you decide to murder me, let me explain…” Church half-begged

“I’m not feeling very gracious after what he asked me,” she snapped.

It didn’t take much racking of his brains for Church to think of a few _hundred_ questions Tucker could have asked to put them both in the current predicament, but really it didn’t matter. It all amounted to Church needing a new robot body after Tex pulverized the current one. Which would have been a _shame_ since he _liked_ the current one.

“Look, Tex, I’m sorry about whatever stupid bullshit Tucker said, but he was _only_ supposed to ask questions that could tell me if you… you know, still had feelings for me or anything… maybe,” Church admitted sheepishly.

Tex didn’t so much as flinch. “I know. Those are the ones he asked.”

“Oh,” Church responded. “Well… In that case, if it made you that pissed you probably are going to kill me anyway so…”

“Shut up,” she snapped before putting away her gun. “Grow a pair and ask me your dumb, middle school _check yes or no_ questions if you really give a damn about how I feel.”

Church smirked. “Okay, well, then, _do you?”_

Tex had the audacity to look at him blankly. “Do I what?”

“Have feelings for me still?” he pressed.

For a moment, Tex seemed quietly contemplative. 

Then there was a bang and Church’s ghost stood in place as his robotic body crumpled to the floor with a new hole in it. 

“Goddammit,” he sighed as Tex walked away in great satisfaction. 


	97. Chex: Die for You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Chex] Tex is about to leave and Church just can never manage to say the right things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from spooky-circuits and freshzombiewriter:  
> Chex "I’d die for you. Of course, I’d haunt you in the afterlife but really, it’s the thought that counts.”

Tex seemed strangely intent on going.

“There’s _no_ other way to take on Wyoming?” Church bothered to ask, as if Tex had a mind that was at all prone to changing. 

“Well, we _could_ just let him do his hit and move on,” Tex said flatly.

Considering the option, Church crossed his arms and hummed slightly before looking back at her. “And that’s not the option we’re taking, because…?”

“It involves Tucker being offed?” she responded a little more annoyed.

“Right,” Church said. “ _And–”_

While it probably wasn’t physically possible for a robot possessed by a ghost to roll their eyes, Tex made a good show of it. Her entire body slumped and followed the roll of her eyes. “Are you honestly still trying to pull off the whole _asshole who doesn’t care about anyone_ routine? Because it’s getting really old how little it’s true,” she snapped.

“Hey, I take offense to that,” Church retorted. “I really _don’t_ give a shit about anyone but myself. And possibly my bank account. But even then that’s only because I like to put it back in its place from time to time.

As soon as the words left his mouth, Church knew they were at least _somewhat_ wrong because even with her helmet on, Tex could make it _very_ apparent when she was staring disappointed holes through Church’s soul. 

“Glad to have that cleared up,” she said thinly. She turned toward the vehicles and began to walk off. “So I’m going after Wyoming. Not that you should care.”

Church rubbed at his face and let out a long groan before trailing after. It was _amazing_ how even with a long history between them, Church could manage to be _so_ fucking bad at talking to her. 

“Hey, Tex! Wait up, just let me clarify something before you leave!” he yelled after her. 

“You’ve made yourself _loud and clear,_ Church, no worries,” she growled, throwing a leg over one of the mongoose seats and beginning to rev it up. 

Though it was dangerous – specifically because Church was _pretty_ sure Tex would make no bones about running over him at that point – he stood in front of the headlights of her vehicle and held up his arms defenselessly. 

As predicted, Tex revved a few times without even acknowledging Church was right in front of her wheels. 

“Look, I’m an asshole through and through,” he began. “And I really _do_ try not to care about other people because it just bites me in the ass every time.”

At those words, Tex went strangely stiff. She broke eye contact and swore under her breath, but she didn’t try to challenge the point. Which was _odd_ but Church was a roll and couldn’t stop yet. 

“Tex, even if I really, truly manage to be an emotionless bag of shit someday, I just need you to know that it will never extend to you, alright? I’d _die_ for you,” he pointed out, hinging on the melodrama to take his point home. When Tex stared at him, somewhat aghast, Church coughed awkwardly into his fist and glanced off. “Of course, I’d haunt you in the afterlife but really, it’s the thought that counts.”

“You’re already dead, is this supposed to be impressive?” Tex said, voice strained. “We’re _both_ dead, what is this supposed to prove?”

“Would you just let a romantic gesture pass for what it is? Just once?” Church groaned. 

“No,” Tex snapped, turning the wheels away from Church and beginning to take off on her individual quest. “And, by the way, _cut that shit out._ It’s not your job to die for me anymore, got it?”

Church blinked cluelessly as she took off at full speed right by him. “Anymore?”


	98. Tuckington: Green with Envy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Tuckington] On the trip home, Wash seems to have attracted some new fans. Tucker takes notice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from anonymous!

Wash could feel his hand growing sweatier by the second as the UNSC private continued to shake it for what felt like the eleventh hour of repeated congratulations. And while he was trying to not be rude, he had already begun to slowly start drawing his hand away from the vice grip that was the young girl’s hands. 

“I’ve read up every story published about you and your soldiers, Agent. Wow, just _wow_ , it’s such an honor to be one of your emissary guides on the trip back home,” she continued gushing. If possible her hand shaking increased. “Wow, just _wow_ and to think you led an entire squadron of simulation troopers into multiple military confrontations. Not to mention everything on Chorus. Of course I don’t have to tell _you_ what was amazing about the performance on Chorus and–”

“Ha, _yes,”_ Wash attempted weakly to free himself. “That’s true. You don’t.”

He never dealt well with flattery as it was – a symptom of growing up with sisters, he believed – but this was pushing the already nonexistent limits. 

“Just an absolute inspiration–”

“Hey!” Tucker’s voice carried, drawing both Wash’s eyes and those of the young private as he crossed over to them. “Miss guide chick, do you think you could help Caboose? He ran off to find the ship’s navigational AI. You don’t want him to do that.”

With a gasp, the private let go of Wash’s hand. “Oh my gosh!”

Having his hand returned to him, Wash rubbed it sorely and watched as the young private began to take off for the exit. She faltered before turning on her heels and saluting to him. 

“It’s been an honor, Sir–”

“Yeah, he got it. Trust me, his ego is fine,” Tucker snapped, prompting the UNSC soldier to continue off after Caboose. He then came up alongside Wash and crossed his arms, head shaking. He let out a short snort which drew even more suspicion from Washington.

“Tucker,” he said simply.

“What? Unhappy I broke up your fan club?” Tucker asked sarcastically. “Well, sorry, but she’s supposed to be our guide and that means keeping watch on Caboose. I’m sure as hell not spending my free time watching Caboose anymore. I’ve been doing that for the past thirteen years. _Thirteen years,_ Wash. I paid my time.”

“Mmhmm,” Wash hummed in response. “And just who _told_ Caboose the ship had a navigational AI?”

When Tucker didn’t answer immediately, Wash pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“ _Tucker,”_ he groaned. 

“What? I had to get creative to get Private Buttkiss away from you,” he snapped back. “She was, like, sucking all the oxygen out of your space. You’re welcome.”

Rolling his eyes, Wash sighed. “Yes, how noble of you. Though, I _do_ guess it’s better than your usual response, which is to laugh and soak up my embarrassment,” Wash noted. He took pause, eyes widening with realization that it really _didn’t_ fit Tucker’s usual motivations. He turned and looked at Tucker more directly. “Wait a minute. Are you jealous?”

Almost immediately, Tucker’s entire face lit up. “Jealous? What? Ha, of you? Getting attention? Never. I mean. Wait, yes. That’s it. That’s totally it. I’m jealous because I’m the father of alien jesus and that deserves more respect than whatever she was fanning over you for.”

Wash’s brows raised higher. “You _are_ jealous of these little UNSC soldiers throwing themselves at me.”

“No,” Tucker snapped. “You’re not that great.”

“Uh huh,” Wash smirked, looking back to the door. “You know, that private was asking if I should go to the cafeteria with her. She was going to show me all the good food. I might take her up on it.”

“Wash, I swear to god, don’t you dare,” Tucker growled. “But not because I’m jealous. Far from it.”

“Of course,” Wash replied, completely amused. 


	99. Grimmons: Make Me Care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Grimmons] Simmons just wants Grif to help clean the base.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a_taller_tale prompted:  
> Grimmons "Come over here and make me"

The chore wheel was a suggestion that had died a terribly painful death in a fire before it had even gotten off the ground. A fate that, while perhaps predictable, was still enough to have made Simmons mope around the base for a few good shifts before taking up his regular approach to chores.

Yelling at his fellow Reds to do their jobs before ultimately settling on doing things himself. 

_The usual._

Still, it didn’t serve to make it any less aggravating how nonchalant Grif was about laying back on his bed while Simmons moped just outside their bunk door. 

“Grif!” Simmons growled. “Get off your ass and help me clean the base today!”

For a moment, Grif paused his content humming and tilted his chin back in thought. As if he was _actually_ considering the options, before looking to Simmons. “Why would I ever do that? You’re not making a whole lot of sense, Simmons. Did you maybe slip on the wet floors and bust your head?”

With a growl, Simmons pointed with his free hand toward his companion. “Grif, if you don’t help me mop and wax these floors, _you’ll_ get your head busted. And it’s going to be from my mop handle!”

“Careful, Simmons. That almost sounds like a threat,” Grif observed. 

“Grif!” Simmons cried out, rubbing his face with a whine. “Get down here and help out!”

With an annoyed squint of his own, Grif leaned over the side of his bunk and puffed out his lip. “Come over here and make me,” he dared. 

Annoyed _just_ enough to take Grif up on it, Simmons slopped the mop into its bucket and began marching into their room with a determined stride. 

A stride that was almost immediately and underwhelming displaced as Simmons stepped in the exact wrong spot and felt his leg fly out from under him. He let out an extremely loud yelp and began to tumble backward.

“Simmons!” Grif yelled out. 

And it was just about the time that Simmons realized that he was, after all, about to have his head busted open on the newly cleaned floors, that Simmons felt his hand get grabbed securely.

It was just enough for him to be held up, suspended loosely by the backs of his heels and the firm hand on his wrist, that Simmons narrowly avoided the hard tile mere inches from the back of his skull.

When he looked up, he saw Grif hanging precariously from his bunk, hands clasped on Simmons’ wrist, and concern managing to our out from his angry glare. 

“Can you not watch where you’re going?” he demanded. “Goddamn, Simmons, you _trying_ to be the first soldier in the history of _ever_ who successfully maimed himself following a chore wheel?”

Simmons blinked a few times. “Actually, the chore wheel’s not in play. You guys shot that idea down,” he reminded Grif.

“Whatever,” Grif huffed, pulling himself further back onto his bunk and pulling Simmons back upright in the process. “I mean, just can you watch out for yourself a _little_ bit, Simmons? Goddamn, dude. You just about gave me a heart attack.”

Face heating up, Simmons blinked at Grif’s words a few times.

Catching onto Simmons’ expression, Grif’s face lit up as well and he quickly ducked back onto his bunk. “I mean, it’s _what the fuck ever_  at the end of the day. Get yourself killed for all I care. Just… You know. Watch it.”

“Yeah, okay,” Simmons said back, rubbing at his neck and awkwardly ducking out. “Whatever you say Grif.”

He rubbed gingerly at his wrist the whole time he put away the mop and bucket. 


	100. Sargegrey: Safety Hazard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [SargeGrey] Doctor Grey has an unusual recommendation for Sarge's future health.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from goodluckdetective!

His fingers ran over the metal strips another time. A foolish thing to do, considering that he had _just_ been reminded of how his wound was sterilized thanks to the good doctor’s extensive work put into it, whereas his grubby hands were quite the opposite even hours after coming in from the field. 

But he liked the even feel of it. 

Sarge had never trusted others to do his stitches – Donut needed an excuse to break into personal space like Sarge needed another gaping wound on his scalp, Simmons’ hands could never be steady enough to get the job done, Lopez’s robotic limbs lacked the care or dexterity, Grif would fuck it up, the Blues could not be trusted, and if the Blues couldn’t be trusted then Doc was the antithesis of trust. 

But after hours of blood loss and dizziness upon his and Tucker’s return from the field, Doctor Grey had finally made a rather stern threat about tethering him down and using him as a pin cushion for all the trouble he’d caused. So she had the honors of putting his head back together.

Literally.

“Stop that,” Doctor Grey said idly, not even looking Sarge’s way as she bapped his fingers away from the wound. 

“They’re nice and even,” he complimented her. “Almost as good as the ones I would have made if you’d just let me at a mirror!”

She hummed slightly before looking over her tablet, eyebrow raised at him incredulously. “You wanted stitches,” she reminded him.

“Of course I did,” he remarked with a toss of his hand. “I just didn’t want anyone else putting them in. I knew what I needed.”

“I had to use _staples_ for the wound,” she said. 

While Doctor Grey’s voice could never be adequately described as _dry_ she did manage a good job of flattening the usual sing to her words. 

If Sarge hadn’t known any better, he might have thought she was angry. 

“Well, staples _do_ seem more manly,” Sarge acknowledged, stroking his chin as he sat back. 

Doctor Grey’s pen snapped in her hand.

Sarge blinked in surprise. 

“Hmm,” she said, looking at the ink all over her fingers before she reached for a towel. Sarge handed it to her and Doctor Grey gave him a very forced smile. “Thank you, Colonel.”

“Aw, you know to call me _Sarge_ in private,” he attempted sweetly only to have the inky towel thrown back at his face for the attempt. “Hm. If I didn’t know better, Doctor Grey, I’d say you had something you were trying to communicate to me through very bewitching female ploys–”

“Sarge, as you are well aware, I have grown a certain fondness for our private discussions,” she informed him, squaring her shoulders with his. There was a sharp flicker to her eyes. “I enjoy speaking endless hours to you about medical care, robotic advancements, and the general politics of war and peace, albeit you _do_ tend to ramble off over my head in color coded militaristic theory.”

“And I have enjoyed them as well!” Sarge replied almost in surprise. 

“Good, then on behalf of our shared fondness, I must make this very valid threat upon your person,” she said, leaning forward and giving a stern poke to his staples. One that was harsh enough to even make Sarge, manly as he was, flinch back from the pain. “If you die, I am going to be forced to kill you. Are we clear?”

He looked at her, completely lost in her beautiful fury. “I have never had so fetching a woman _so_ concerned with my personal welfare that she would reach out and threaten my wellbeing!” He huffed and put a hand to his chin thoughtfully before nodding to himself. “I suppose the only adequate response is to threaten you with the same, Emily.”

“I take the threat very seriously then,” she said, putting a hand on her heart to swear their oath. “May we never be forced to murder each other protectively.”

“Here here!” Sarge cheered back. 


	101. Grimmons: Laundry Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Grimmons] Simmons wakes up to a surprise. Or two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from a-taller-tale

He woke up to a pile of his own laundry being dumped on his head. Which was odd, because that meant someone _besides_ him had had his laundry to begin with. 

Simmons sputtered and swatted away the clean articles away from himself, flailing a bit from his bunk. By the time he was no longer being assaulted by his own freshly scented drawers, the culprit was moving on to the closet.

“Grif, what the hell?” Simmons asked, a bit taken aback by the whole scene. 

“You’re welcome,” Grif grouched as he shoved his own basket into the bottom of the closet and began to close the door without so much as a thought to putting the clean clothes on hangers or into drawers. 

“For _what?”_ Simmons asked, though in reflection it was rather obvious.

“Your laundry, asshole,” Grif said. He kicked aside his spare shoes in order to close the closet door all the way and then further left them in disregard. “You’ve been complaining about doing mine for months.”

“Years,” Simmons corrects without even really thinking.

“Whatever,” Grif huffed as he walked over to the bunks and began to climb to his own again. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“Sleep?” Feeling like he was stuck in the fog of a dream, Simmons checked his nearby alarm and saw the time blaring back. If he didn’t know better, he’d think it was mocking him. “Grif, what the hell, it’s _four in the morning._ Why were you doing our laundry at four in the morning? _Why were you doing laundry at all?_ I didn’t even think you knew how!”

“Pfft,” Grif sputtered over the creaking of his mattress as he settled in. “What? Did you think my sister did it? She couldn’t _walk_ to a laundromat without finding some creep who’d love to knock her up.”

After a moment of silence, Simmons looked up to the bulge in the mattress. “You always deflect questions that are _stupidly_ simple to answer.”

“If they’re so simple, you probably shouldn’t have to ask them,” Grif responded mid yawn. “And _yet…”_

Rolling his eyes, Simmons exhaustedly flopped back onto his bunk and stared at the bunk above. It almost made him able to resist the fact that he was covered in now wrinkling laundry. _His_ laundry. That Grif did for him for mysterious reasons.

“Why are you up at four in the morning doing our laundry?” Simmons attempted again. “No one does that, Grif. No one gets up in the middle of the night and says to themselves, _now’s a good time to do laundry for a friend.”_

There was an unsubtle snort from above him. 

“You’ve never been _just a friend,_ Dick,” Grif huffed.

Simmons blinked, brows raising slightly. 

_Oh._

“That still doesn’t explain the _four in the morning_ or the _laundry_ portions of the question, though,” Simmons managed to get out after a while. “I mean. Not to dismiss the rest of what you’re saying, but I can’t bask in the emotional resonance when I’m still trying to figure out the real mystery here–”

He completely deserved the pillow to his face. 


	102. Tuckington: Sock Problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Tuckington] Wash is angry at Tucker and the "why" of it isn't a mystery for long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from a_taller_tale

There were a multitude of things wrong. Tucker wasn’t always sure what they _were_ , but he could judge fairly well based on the expression on Wash’s face as he walked through their barracks door.

Considering that Wash was staring very intently at _him_ and that Caboose was out moping around the jungle’s edges still, Tucker also deduced that it had been something he had done.

Which… strangely enough, did _not_ happen to narrow the list down.

“What?” Tucker finally asked, a little mystified as he rolled over from his stomach to sitting upright on the makeshift bunk. 

In a very Washington fashion, the former Freelancer narrowed his eyes and continued to stare at Tucker for a moment before looking around the room. Wordlessly, he went straight for the drawers. 

“Oh, my god, I _cannot_ play another round of twenty questions with you,” Tucker groaned, laying back on the bunk. “When you find your words again, let me know.”

“Socks,” Wash said, short and angry. Like Tucker had finally finished his course in monosyllabic translations.

“Okay,” Tucker said, tapping his fingers against his knees. 

After shifting through the drawer with a degree of aggressiveness that Tucker had thought was reserved for their training sessions, Wash let out a growl and slammed them shut. He then turned on Tucker with that flicker of anger in his eyes suddenly given a new direction.

“Wash, what the _fuck?”_ he groaned. “I don’t speak Freelancer!”

“I don’t have anymore socks,” he informed Tucker flatly.

“Cry me a river,” Tucker snapped. When Wash’s expression didn’t change, the Blue groaned and dropped his shoulders with a sigh. “What’s it have to do with _me?”_

Standing up, Wash crossed his arms. “I just learned it’s because the _Reds_ have taken all my socks and… Well, I can’t get my socks back. Nor will I want them back. Ever.”

Tucker couldn’t help the snicker that emerged from his throat. 

“I also know that I’m missing my socks for the same reason I’m missing my tools or my _tank,_ Tucker,” he said, eyes narrowing more even still.

And, like the flip of a switch, Tucker realized why it all suddenly involved him. “Oh.”

“ _Yes,”_ Wash gritted out.

“Oh, okay,” Tucker said, holding up his hands. “Before you decide to murder me, let me explain…”

“You can explain why you gave Dexter Grif my entire sock drawer to… misuse.”

“I can do a lot of things for you, Wash,” Tucker promised. “Which, by the way, is why I figure you don’t need socks anymore to begin with.”

Washington’s expression faltered slightly. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know, you don’t need socks for that job,” Tucker continued.

The Freelancer didn’t move a muscle, but Tucker was beginning to be able to see his pulse visibly from his neck. “Tucker, _I am mad because I wear my socks!_ Not because I want them for masturbation!”

“What the hell do you wear socks for? It’s sweaty and fucking _hot_ in this jungle, man!” Tucker cried out.

“I just… you are…” Wash made an inhuman noise and then pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re ridiculous.”

“No, _you_ are, dude. Who wears socks out here?”


	103. Tucker & Washington: The Writer and the Detective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tucker is a writer, Wash is his detective partner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A prompt, if you so desire, Rena-my-stsr: RvB, Castle au with Tucker as the novelist and Wash as the detective.

All the police cars Tucker had been in, for one reason or another, had come with their own distinct smell with the same underlying scent of cheap leather. And it was about the third police car he had been in that he had stopped asking for the stories behind where the smells came from.

“Hey,” Tucker said, slamming the door behind him as he slid into the passenger seat. 

Detective Washington didn’t turn his head so much as glare at Tucker through the corners of his eyes before glancing toward his wrist. His other hand was gripping the steering wheel. 

“You’re late,” Wash told him, as if he wasn’t _always_ some degree of tardy.

Tucker shoved his muffin into his mouth so that his arms were freed up to put on his seatbelt. Wash might have _acted_ the role of calm and quiet, but Tucker had been a ride-along enough to know that the man was something of a maniac behind the wheel. He glanced ahead then back at Wash as he completed putting on his seatbelt. 

“Yeah?” he finally asked, putting what was left of the muffin in Wash’s lap. He lavished the look of disgust the lawman gave the gesture nearly as much as he did the knowledge that as soon as he wasn’t busy being cranky, Wash was going to eat the whole thing without a second thought. “You’re still not moving.”

Rolling his eyes, Wash began pulling out. 

Despite his usual antics with Wash, Tucker had a bit of work to get to himself, and begun digging through his satchel for his favorite notepad and a pen. 

After a few moments of rummaging, Wash eased up in his own seat and – sure enough – picked up the muffin to begin eating. 

“Written anything decent yet?” Wash asked.

“Done any actual police work yet?” Tucker fired back without hesitation. 

And they started their day, same as usual – the detective and the writer, and the inseparable partners that neither cared to comment on. 


	104. Carolina: Just Fine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carolina's sneezes disrupts the Freelancer training room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from ephemeraltea: Open Secret with the Freelancers?

It wasn’t really a sneeze that came out of Carolina but more of a big rig exploding and causing a six car pile up. She sneezed and York was somewhat sure that they had to stop working in the engine rooms to process what was happening. 

He, like the rest of their team, looked at her with a bizarre mix of concern and bafflement. 

Their stalwart leader quickly rubbed at her face, shaking her head, before looking back up to the rest of the training room. She met their confused and concerned looks with absolute contempt. 

“Is there something to be looking at here, team?” she demanded stuffily. 

They all glanced to each other and then back to her. 

York coughed into his fist. “Yeah, uh, boss… I can’t help but notice you’re a little under the weather–”

“I am not,” she replied, chin rising up which, from the looks of it, made her dizzy enough to have to sit back in her chair and blink a few times. “I’m not,” she said again, as if anyone but herself was going to be convinced. 

South raised her arm from the weight rack. “Boss, if you’re not sick, can we spar?” 

North lightly smacked her on the shoulder which only made South’s devilish grin grow. Everyone was waiting on the leader’s decision. 

“We have a track record that proves it won’t be necessary for me to fight you to know where we’re ranked at hand-to-hand,” Carolina thought up fast enough. “York, since you have nothing better to do but worry about others, you can spar with South instead.”

Throwing up his arms, York let out a beleaguered sigh. “I’m not sure why I even try.”


	105. Yorkalina: Stay With Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Yorkalina] Carolina visits York in the hospital after hours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> icefrozenover prompted: Stay with me - tuckington or yorklina?

She only went to check on York after hours because she knew that unlike all the time she spent in the hospital room before, it was no longer going to be stuffed to the gills with their fellow soldiers. Unlike every waking second York had had to that point, it was actually going to be only herself and York. 

It’d been a while – too long – since that had happened. 

A part of her hoped that he was resting – _actually_ resting and getting better after what had to have been a major shock to his system. But another part of her, that selfish voice that she never quite learned how to drown out, knew she _really_ wanted him to be wide awake and ready to tell her everything she needed to hear. About the training room incident, about what he’s overheard from the hospital staff, and about the fact that he was fine of course.

Carolina _truly_ needed the last bit of news. 

So it was somewhat relieving to open the doors with an abuse of her security access and find York sitting upright in his bed, tapping away boredly at the tablet in his lap. Head still wrapped up halfway, and probably nowhere near where it needed to be so he could be ready. 

“Hey,” she called out, a little dumbly from the door. 

York looked up with his one available eye and blinked in surprise before flinching at the pain the strain caused his face. “H-hey,” he said.

“You’re lucid,” she noted, continuing the rest of the way in. “Glad to see it.”

“Yeah, well, you know how I feel about pain meds,” he tried to joke, some wrinkles added to the forced grin. “You’re away from duty. That’s not like you.”

“I needed to know my team would be alright,” she said, still keeping her distance. “Are… Are we alright?”

He tapped his fingers against his tablet in a subtle rhythm but ultimately nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re alright… just…” He looked away from her, suddenly sheepish on the subject.

Carolina waited for a few beats of silence before coming into the room the rest of the way, letting the door slide close behind her. “What is it?”

York looked at her tiredly. “How long do I have to recover before I lose my spot?”

Taken aback, Carolina thought of the points separating York and Wyoming on the current leaderboard. “It’s hard to say. You’ve got more than a few points ahead of him–”

“On the _team_ , Carolina,” he clarified. “How long do you think…”

Nearing the bed, Carolina wasted no time in wrapping her hands around York’s. “You’re not losing a spot on my team,” she promised him, squeezing tightly. “You can’t be replaced. No one comes even close to you…” She rethought the phrase and squeezed again. “Your _skill set.”_

A tired grin showed on York’s face, though whether or not he bought Carolina’s words was hard to say. 

“Let’s hope that Command shares your sentiment,” he joked, resting back on his pillow, eye still distant in thought.

Reluctantly, Carolina returned York’s hand to his lap and took a breath. “Are you sure you’re okay? Do you need anything?”

He hummed in thought. “Some company for the night wouldn’t kill me.”

With a small smile of her own, Carolina moved to York’s side opposite of the various monitors and lowered the rail. She then climbed onto the cot and laid against his shoulder and side. 

He turned enough to fit against her warmly and even his breath. And though he didn’t close his eye, Carolina felt his body begin to rest against her warmly. 


	106. Yorkalina: Ticket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Yorkalina] Carolina is an officer of the law, but that doesn't mean she's the only one not having a good day on the job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> crim-bat prompted: Prompt: AU where Lina is a cop and gets into a car wreck with a locksmith named York. Also, North and South drive the tow truck

One thing she didn’t honestly think could happen to her that often once she became an officer of the law was getting sideswiped on duty. Really, she thought that the number of instances would have gone _down_ being an on duty officer in a marked vehicle. 

She was obviously _wrong_ however, because since joining the force she had been in such accidents _five_ times. Her fifth encounter being the one that just seemed to break the camel’s back.

Mostly because it wasn’t enough for the asshole to hit her car, but to then go straight into the fire hydrant. 

Carolina gritted her teeth and stormed over to the driver’s side of the van, taking note only peripherally that it had some weird logo with a key and a number plastered to the side. She shined her flashlight on the guy, getting the expected flinching back and covering of his face with his hands. 

“Hey, now,” the man said blearily. 

“If you were on your phone when you did that, sir, not gonna lie, I will be _pissed,”_ Carolina said before she got control of her temper, took a deep breath, and went with protocol. “Sir, are you injured?”

“Uh, how about a wounded pride? Does that count?”

“No,” Carolina countered without hesitation. “Sir, is there a _reason_ you were not in control of your vehicle?”

“I may have an answer for that, but you’re not going to like it,” he responded. 

“License, registration, insurance,” she ordered briskly. She watched as he scrambled for the glove compartment. “Have you been drinking tonight, sir?”

He let out a laugh. “I wish. No, I’m working,” he said, pulling out his car registration, insurance, and then went for his wallet.

It was about that time that Carolina noticed in the floor was a small dashboard GPS, screen flashing low battery, and obviously disconnected from its stand. The officer began piecing things together pretty easily after that. 

“New to the area?” she asked, raising a brow as she finally got a hold of his license. Sure enough, it was New York state registration. 

“New to the _state_ , actually,” he laughed, running a hand through his hair. 

“Startup business in the middle of nowhere Texas,” she smirked. “Of course, this doesn’t excuse poor driving. Just explains it. Never trusted a yankee behind the wheel.”

“Harsh,” he laughed. “And _now_ I’m going to lose one of my first jobs down here. Great start.”

“I’m going to have to write you a ticket,” she informed him after copying over his information and handing it all back. “But I hate to see someone industrious lose some hard earned money. So what would you say I call some people I know to tow your van to their garage and give her some work, and I give you a ride to your job so you can start on paying back this destruction of public property?”

The Yorker smirked at her. “I think I’d like that a lot.”


	107. Grif: Fire in the Hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grif can't get a break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> swedishjazz prompted: Every Story Needs An Explosion - is this not a Red Team aesthetic?

There was an argument to be made that if Grif had _truly_ wanted to know what was happening on the other side of the base, he would have been up before noon. But then again, he figured the debate never really had been whether or not he _truly_ wanted to know what his team was doing so much as it came down to the fact that when things started getting _loud_ outside and he _didn’t_ know what was going on, it was probably going to end up with Sarge shooting him. 

And _that_ tended to be a fate he preferred to see coming. 

Kicking down the door since they were already begrudgingly in motion while his arms had been spared thus far, Grif looked over the grounds of Red Base and screamed for all he was worth, “What the hell is going on?”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than something familiar, circular, and fizzling blue energy landed by his feet.

Grif gave it a solid look over before coming to the right conclusion of just _what_ it was. 

“Aw shit,” he moaned before ducking back into the base barely before the pulsating grenade could have the chance to take off what was un-Simmonsed of his body. “Son of a bitch!”

“Private Donut! You have demonstrated _quite_ the throwing arm!” Sarge’s voice called. “However, what you haven’t demonstrated is a comprehension of what _down the hole_ truly means. Grif should _not_ have had any point of retreating!”

“Sorry, Sir! I wasn’t really aiming. When I aim, I get the hole every time!” Donut replied cheerfully.

“Oh my god, how does no one else _hear_ this!?” Simmons cried out.

Grif dared to look out the door and leer at his teammates. “I should have known this was something stupid and determined to kill me!”

“Grif! Stay where you are! Donut gets a redo!” Sarge ordered.

Having had enough of the morning, Grif got to his feet and started back for the other side of the base. “Yeah, not happening.”

He got only a few steps before there was a _plunk_ and the distinct sizzling right behind his feet. “Goddammit.”

“Told you, Sir!” Donut yelled. “No hole is safe around Franklin Delano Donut!”


	108. CT: Bad Girls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CT gets caught

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> simplylinly prompted: 3 RVB freelancers

“Isn’t it a little late for you?”

For a moment she freezes on the spot. Her eyes widen and she’s expecting a genuine reprimand, expecting _anything_ that could be detrimental to her crusade. 

But that’s before her brain kicks back in and she remembers just _who_ that voice belongs to. 

“South,” CT says, looking back over her shoulder as she’s approached by the other woman. Some relief fills her chest and the ache from constant fear ebbs slightly. 

There’s an easy smirk on South’s face as she wanders over. “Connie.”

“I go by CT now,” she corrects. 

“Yeah, such a hardass now, I know,” South jokes, bumping her fist against CT’s shoulder once she’s close enough. “Staying up past curfew, hissing spite under your breath at training. Don’t think I’ve not taken notice of your bad streak.”

Dropping the flash drive in her hands into her pocket, CT crosses her arms and leans back against the hall wall. “I could say the same about _you,_ though.” She softens her gaze slightly. “What _are_ you doing out this late, anyway?” she asks. 

“Who sleeps anymore?” South shrugs. “Pretty sure they take points off the leaderboard for a good night’s rest these days.”

Unable to stop herself, CT curls her nose. “Yeah. _Probably,”_ she mutters more to herself than to South. 

South continues watching her suspiciously for a moment. CT can feel the sweat beading on the back of her neck when South finally shrugs and waves CT her way. “Well, c’mon,” she says. “Whatever you were _actually_ doing, let’s make it believable and go raid the mess hall while we’re out here. Keep those alibis handy.”

Surprised, CT blinks a few times, watching as South passes her and walks toward the mess hall.

Stopping, South looks back and looks expectantly at CT. “What? You _want_ to get caught doing _whatever_ it is you’re doing this late?” she asks.

“No,” CT replies, coming up to South’s side. “But what makes you think this’ll work?”

“Please,” South snorts. “You might be new to the whole _badass rule breaker_ thing, but I wrote the PFL handbook on it.”

And for the first time in months, CT finds herself smiling as she walks with South toward the kitchen. 


	109. Washington: Last Moonlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His new name is Agent Washington.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ch0colatewings prompted: Moonlight, Freelancers for your writing meme! Thanks! :D

He was new and things were different, even more different than they had been with his last assignment. And _that_ had involved living on a formerly Covenant-ran world with things far stricter and far more dangerous than anything he had been used to. 

After being passed up by several plain clothed staff members – all seemingly ignorant that he was one of the special agents assigned to the program – he took pause and glanced down to his assignment. 

_Agent Washington._

That was going to take some getting used to. 

“Gotta take it in while we can, huh?” 

The voice was crackling but kind, maybe a little world weary. It drew his gaze up to its source and found her standing by the window which adorned the hall. 

She was wearing a uniform, same as him, though it wasn’t perhaps as fitted given that it exaggerated her short stature. 

When she glanced over to him, the brunette had a wily smirk on her face. “You agree, Rookie?”

The address surprised him slightly – that was the first time he had been recognized as one of the agents since he came on board. “I guess I just don’t know what we’re talking about,” he admitted, walking up to her side. He kept his eyes on her for most of it, more than a little apprehensive toward her. Then he looked out to the window. 

It just looked like space to him.

“The moon, the planet – orbit,” she listed off, leaning heavily against the window. “Just look at how that light dances off the surface of it, Rookie – the moon’s _beautiful_. And it’s the last one we’ll be seeing for a while.” She snorted, shaking her head. “We’ll be in _space_ and we won’t be seeing _anything_ like this for months at a time. How crazy.”

Honestly, he hadn’t put much thought into it. He had been more than ready to leave it all behind, to pay back the Director and the Counselor for the generosity they had shown him. 

“The name’s Connecticut, by the way,” she introduced herself, offering a hand.

For a moment, the name threw him off and he tilted his head. “That’s… an interesting name.”

“It’s the codename they gave me, dumbass,” she laughed – a genuine, deep laugh. “Everyone’s taken to calling me _Connie_ for short now, though.”

“Oh, _oh,”_ he replied, finally taking her hand. “I’m… _Washington.”_ He tried it out, the name still heavy and foreign to his tongue. It was going to take some serious practice to get used to it. “I didn’t realize they were _state_ names.”

She quirked a brow at him. “What’d you think they were?”

“I don’t know… _presidents?”_ he shrugged. 

“Don’t let the others hear that, they’ll think you’re a riot,” Connie laughed. “Well, Agent Washington, it’s going to be an honor serving with you.”

“Same to you… Connie,” he replied, feeling a genuine smile of his own.


	110. Tuckington: No Excuse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Tuckington] Tucker tries to explain himself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thehoundunit prompted: 14 Tuckington? ((Im a dork for them))

“How exactly did you _imagine_ this would go?” There was a certain dullness to Washington’s expression, or at least there was to the part that Tucker could see from their compromised positions. “Better? I like to think you imagined this would go better.” 

“Wash, I think _better_ is a little obvious at this point,” Tucker grunted, tugging at the bars a bit. “In my defense–”

Wash snorted and looked away, beginning to walk back toward the door. 

“Wait! Wash! Hear me out!” Tucker groaned. 

“I just fail to see how you think there’s a _defense_ to be had here,” Wash snapped, standing by the door. “I’m having to _bail you out._ In a sector that neither of us have any pull in.”

“I’ll pay you back–”

“That isn’t the issue,” Wash groaned, putting a hand over his face and sighing. “Okay, you know what? I _do_ want to hear your version of events. _Really._ I want to be informed about just what nonsense is happening in your thick skull right now.”

Tucker blinked.

“ _Why_ were you naked and unconscious in a fountain in front of the hotel?” Wash cut to the chase. 

“Okay, that involves explaining last night after you left the bar–”

“In thirty seconds or less,” Wash amended. “Starting now.”

“That’s not–”

“Twenty-five seconds.”

“Okay, _fine._ Goddamn,” Tucker snapped. “You left first and after a bit it wasn’t fun at the bar anymore so I got the idea from Grif to get to the hotel room before you by running there and asking the guys to make sure you got stuck in traffic–”

Wash looked affronted. “That was _you!?”_

Angrily, Tucker shushed him. “Dude, do you mind? I’m on the clock. Anyway I got to the hotel room and started taking my clothes off on the way up the stairs to save time. But then I was so drunk and dizzy from the stairwell that I kept trying to get in the wrong room. The lady opened the door, I stumbled in, realized we were the next room, and tried to use the balcony to get over to our place and fell into the fountain _not naked –_ everyone keeps exaggerating – I had underwear and socks on.” He then waved to his current lack of attire. “Obviously.”

For a moment, they just stared at each other before Wash turned back for the door. “Nevermind. It somehow made it all worse.”

“Wash, wait!” Tucker moaned only for the door to shut. “Ah, _fuckberries.”_


	111. Yorkimbalina: Long Track

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Yorkimbalina - RvB Bingo Wars] Carolina's a track star, but there seems to be a new girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: ( @secretlystephaniebrown ) Yorkimbalina, track AU, #9. “Is that a challenge?”
> 
> A/N: LAST MINUTE ENTRIES ARE STILL OKAY. Square: Track

There were three types of people who ran track. There were the people who were keeping in shape during the off season of Football, usually a bit arrogant, usually more interested in discus and shot put than mileage. There were the people who were not exactly competitive but enjoyed the luxury of a varsity sport that could be put on their high school records.

And _then_ there were the _runners._ The ones for who the track was more than a starting point and an ending point, where hurdles were as varied as they were real. 

Whose blood rushed through them with an adrenaline that was incomparable to any other thrill. 

Carolina was the _third_ type. 

Even though they were required to do stretches and warm ups before practice, she showed up nearly fifteen minutes early every day – as soon as the bell rang to let out classes – and did an extra set of stretches and a quick lap before even their coach was around. 

It had gotten to the point that she didn’t even break a sweat in the first laps of practice anymore. And her early rituals were looked at as normal, if not slightly annoying expectation of the rest of the team. 

At least it was until the day Carolina entered the track and found herself staring at the mid grounds where York was standing with some girl she had never seen before. 

York was one of those off-season football players, shot put with little aspirations of even breaking a school record with it. But the girl… she had an athletic body for sure. And her trainers were well worn, almost enough to put Carolina’s own to shame. 

_Almost._

Removing her earbuds, Carolina broke with her usual routine and walked toward the two. 

“Ah, and here’s our varsity captain,” York said in his usual, loud, boisterous way. He gave Carolina a wide grin. “Hey, green-eyes.”

Carolina blinked at him and then looked toward the other girl. “Someone new?”

“Completely new to the school,” York said, his eyes darting over the girl. “This is Vanessa Kimball. The VP asked me to show her around _and_ she’s interested in joining the track team.”

“New to the school, not to the region,” Kimball informed Carolina, offering a hand. “I’ve watched you in the fifteen-hundred and the five-k. And hurdles. I’ve… been watching your career.”

Surprised, Carolina raised her brows. “Oh?” she asked. “You long distance?”

“I’m a sprinter,” Kimball clarified. “But… I guess you can call me a fan from another school.”

York looked back and forth between them before pointing a thumb to his chest. “I shot put.”

Not taking her eyes from Kimball, Carolina shrugged on York’s behalf. “He’s football.”

“Shame,” Kimball laughed. “I would’ve been excited to form a competitive triad on the team.”

Looking around them and then glaring, York crossed his arms. “I’m competitive. I’m the most competitive asshole you’ll meet.”

Carolina snorted. “He’s not wrong.”

Kimball smirked. “Guess this new school has me sold.”


End file.
